Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1884-10-21
CRY HALT

1t is time to protest against the practice
of a goodly portion of the San Francisco
press once more. The journalists of that city
have genius for doing the wrong thing
pretty much all the time. The present
craze in Francisco is the publication Of full
accounts of local prize fighting. Scarcely
day passes that some of the city papers
do not force upon the reading public long
accounts of bruising matches. These are
retailed with all the GOODNESS and minute
| ness that characterize the ordinary account
of some event valuable to men and of real
news quality. The practice has become
disgusting. One especial pugilistic ring
is as regularly reported as any of the
dramatic performances at legitimate places
of amusement, and more fully. 1t appears
| from these accounts that the law officers
| do not interfere with the brutal exhibitions.
| Hard gloves and bare knuckles are used,
and no one seems to question the unlaw
| fitness of the acts. What do the San
Francisco journalists suppose will be the
| effect of this kind of literature upon the
youth of the country? Are they really so
| short-sighted as to fail to see that they are
| fostering brutal and brutalizing practice?
That they are giving tone and character to
those things the law seals as criminal?
| The degraded creatures and worthless bull
lies who are paraded day after day before
| the public are of the class inimical to the
well-being of a community. They sow
not, neither do they reap. They are the
hangers-on of haunts of vice; the cappers
/ for low gin-mills, the associates of prosti-
| tutcs, and the task-masters of the pitia-
| bic street-wakcrs. Their instincts are
| brutal, their tastes vulgar and criminal.
Their daily lives contribute to the vice, ig-
ignorance and woe of the land They do
not earn their bread legitimately they con-
taminate the youth of the land, despoil
virtue and aSsail honest men. Yet these
human brutes are daily paraded by the
press of San Francisco as disciples of the
manly art of sef-dcfense," and their
| bruising matches retailed with all the gloss
| and glamour needed TO draw youth to the
scenes of their bestial performances. In
the name of decency. the Call Chronicle
and Examiner should cease reporting these
demoralizing " entertainments" If shame
will not touch the proprietors of the jour
nails the decent public should, and give
them to understand that the business is in
tolerable. The telegraphic reports are
bad enough in this respect, heaven
knows, and the telegraphic columns of self
respecting journals are blotched every
now and then with accounts of the most
brutalizing character. The "slogger' APP
pears to have captured" cowed or bought
the Geographic reporters, and there come
in consequence from the smoky dens OF
vice daily accounts of bruta! "set-tos"
witnessed by the depraved of both sexes,
and applauded by the villains and vicious
Of the cutters and back alleys of the cities
The country appears to have been given up
to rlis fighting gentry and as result
the Australian and English brusing class
is lloclling to us by every steamer, and
swelling the ranks of the men who live
| upon the women of the town, and rob
upon the highway whenever the public
contributions To their fstic entertain
ments' fail to supply their vulger wants
1t is time for the press of the whole land
to cry halt to this "sIogging" business