Los Angeles daily herald., 1889-07-07
Brawn and Muscle ON Top.

Brawn and Muscle on Top.
Three States in which the law against
prize fights is plain and stringent are
now trying through their Governors, to
keep their territory from becoming the
theatre of the bruising match between
Sullivan and Kilrain. They have all
issued proclamations denouncing the
penalty of the law against the combat
ants, and have sent special instructions
70 the Sheriffs of the border counties en-.
joining them to be particularly vigilant,
and to arrest the principals if they at
tempt to fight the battle within their
jurisdictions. The Governor of Missis-
sippi has gone beyond the limit of mere
formal instruction, and offered a reward
of 81, 900 for the delivery to the authori-
ties of Sullivan and Kilrain. With the
evidence of so much Executive deter.
mination to prevent the fight, and
the CO operation, apparently, OF
the three Governors to pre-
serve their respective States from
the threatened breach of the peace and
violation of the law, one would thiuk
that the fight could not possibly take
place either in Louisiana, Mississippi or
Alabama.
But the men who are managing the
business affairs of the pueilists, and the
pugilsts themselves, seem to treat the
Gubernatorisl manifestoes with the
utmost indifference. They are pursuing
their object without the slightest regard
to what the Governors or Sheriffs may
say or do, and seem to act as if they
knew there would or could be no inter
ference with their plans. They have
openly chartered trains TO take them and
their followers to the rendezvous, and
outer circles openly. 1t is hardly to be
believed that these men are deliberately
carrying cut a game Of swindle, and that
they intend TO gather in all the shekes
they can get with knowledge that
it will be impossible for the
fight to take place. We say that
such a programme is hardly to be
credited, because all the circumstances
touching upon The affair seem to point to
battle to take place in good faith. The
principals have endured very long and
painful term of training. public excite
ment has been worked up studiously to
the highest pitch, the sporting world has
been put on the qui giee everywhere for
the event, and the men who are behind
the principals are putting up their money
L.
element amongst the sporting men in the
United States who stand highest in their
class for honesty and fairdealing are
treating the event as one that is sure to
take place, and, indeed, everybody
whose opinion ought to be of value in
case of this kind, seems to view the sur
face official announcements OF the fight
as Koko did the matrimonial advice OF
Poo-Bsh-"ss having nothing to do with
the case"
1t is not for US to say how the power of
the three Governors is to be set at naught
and their efforts to prevent the fight
from taking place to be circum vented
but it does appear to US, in view of the
indifference of the pugilists and their
friends to the Executive pronouncements,
as if the "sports" had, in this instance,
"pull" upon which they rely with the |
greatest confidence. Indeed it looks. at
this distance, as if there was an under |
standing, sub rosa, with the authorities,
that if the managers of the fight will
exercise cunning and discretion, the
officers Of the law will find it convenient
not to be able to discover the locale of
the battlefield in time to squelch the
event.
There is something in human nature
that impels nine men out OF
ten to take, at first q slight
and then an active, interest
in contest like this that has impercept- |
IDLY become National. OF course it is |
shameful and brutal to permit two men
to stand up in the ring and batter each |
other into jelly with their hardened fists, |
propelled by the Drawn and muscle and |
will-power of the practiced pugilist. 1t
would be impossible to imagine an audi
ence of American ladies' sitting in the
Coliseum and turning down their thumbs
as sentence of dispatch against the
plsadings from the arena of dying
gladiator. Nor could we realize that the
elite of our society could, under any cir
appreciate the intense spirit
of enjoyment evinced by the cream Of