The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1889-08-23
THE PROSECUTION OF THE PUGILIsTs.

There are two poor ways of doing q
thing-overdoing and undertaking it. In
either instance the object aimed at is
missed and whatever good results were in
tended are not achieved. 1t would seem to
be scarcely necessary in a day and a time
like this to remind officers of the law that
their missionfs not, or at least was not in
tended to be, the swelling of existing regu-
lations to undue proportions in order that
they themselves might be swollen; but it
seems to be called for as much as it ever
was Those who are charged with the pro
lection of the populace through the up
holding of the law are always subject to
criticism, and sometimes, quite often we
might say, this is visited upon them when
they are doing or after they have done
what they conceived to be their plain and
bounden duty. This is as bad as the other,
and it would be a good thing for everybody
if both could be stopped.
Regarding the proceedings against the
Lake Park pugilists and their aiders and
abettors, THE HERALD could not and would
not have any other opinion than that the
law must be upheld and that the officers
who seek to uphold it are doing their Cuty
Every law should be enforced or expunged
from the statute book. In this respect,
the officers are left with no discretion but
to do what they are employed to do. There
is but one injunction we would place upon
them-do not slOp over, do not make of
Justice a mockery, and do not let your
virtue assume a spasmodic form, because
thereby you may iniure the good cause
which we doubt not you are trying to sub
serve.
The person who says boxing is bad
thing is either ignorant or foolish. Prop
erly controlled and under proper circum-
stances, there is no more healthful or ply
sically beneficial exercise than sparring
with gloves of sufficient softness to rem
der it unlikely that they infiict any great
injury. And there are other advantages
connected with it, too: it inculcates STAN
ina, self-reliance, gracefulness of move
ment, precision of the eyesight, and so on.
But as between this and prize fighting
there is wide and deep line Of separation.
They are not related in any degree. The
former may be as it frequently is, prac-
ticed by gentlemen, scholars and even
statesmen; the latter only by class who
resort to it for the money there is in it or
to crafty brutal instinct.
In the pursuit of the class last referred
to, all good people and certainly this paper
will join. They do not benefit society, and
should have no resting place anywhere.
The question now is, was the affair at Lake
Park a prize fight as that term is usually
and technically understood With all the
light before u.s. we think not. Prize fights,
according to the code, are fought with the
bare fists, under rules conducive of brutal
ity, and generally for fixed stake. If it
was such fight, then every soxl who was
there, whether by chance or design,
whether as principal, accessory or witness,
is subject TO Indictment and should be in
dicted; but if, as the evidence seems TO
show, it was fight with gloves weighing
at least four ounces each, and had all the
clements of a prize fight in it but that,
then it was plainly a mixed case of skill
and brutality with much of the latter
feature eliminated by reason of the gloves.
To talk of Furnishing everybody under such
circumstances would be folly in the ex-
IRENE.
The dramatic manner in which part of the
have been conducted will, we
hope. for the sake of the territory itself
and the dignity which should surround all
such proceedings, be henceforth summarily
dronnad