Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1890-06-11
LICENSING LAwLEssNEss.

GUS protest against the policy obtaining in
San Francisco concerning boxing and
slogging. A slogger was killed the other
night in that city; he received his in
juries in match" before one of the
licensed so-called aathlstic clubs" But,
as the Alta observes, the matches these
clubs arrange are very slightly modified
from prize fights, that by the laws of the
State are declared to be felonies, and for
which those engaged in them on convic-
ton may be sent to the State Prison, while
all those present at such matches may be
punished for misdemeanor.
AS matter of fact, and on this point
our information is direct and undeniable,
the boxers before the licensed clubs of San
Francisco really fight. They use gloves
that little, if any, reduce the risk of the
blows doing damage. They pound each
other until blood flows, teeth are broken,
bones fractured, eyes closed up and faces
are swollen beyond recognition. Not in
frequently one or both of the combatants
receive such injury as to lay them up in
hospital for considerable time.
These are the kind of contests that the
city of San Francisco licenses at right
round figure, and to which the select few
with coin in their purses are admitted.
But no matter how large the gloves, how
harmless the exercise. how merely in
mimicry the boxing is INDUCED in, if any
one outside these athletic clubs gives
boxing exhibition, the police pounce upon
the offenders and cart them off to prison.
The favorite four hundred of the slog-
ging social circle can, under cover of
municipal law, crafty vulgar and brutal
taste by witnessing two hired sloggefs
beat each other into insensibility. But the
poor man is not permitted to witness the
most harmless exhibition of expertness in
assault and defense, in which the partici-
pants hands are clothed in pillows" and
when they do each other no physical harm.
Only few days ago, in respectable
theater, one of the first of San Francisco,
In the course of play, two of the actors,
following the text, plot and stage business
set down, engaged in mimic boxing
gloved match. 1t was pure mimicry, not
genuine boxing, no slogging, and yet the
police arrested the management of the
theater under the municipal ordinance.
The same night, or certainly within a day
or two, at one of the licensed athletic
clubs, one bruiser beat another into insen-
sibility, and the wounded man had to be
carried away in the arms of friends and
put into a hospital.
The municipal authorities, the Super
visors, Mayor and police of San Fran
cisco, know these to be facts. They are
parties to a miserable example of incon-
sistency they know that they protect law
lessness in one case. and interfere to pre-
vent harmless exercise and athletic skill
In another, and that the distinction be-
tween what they condemn and that they
approve is measured by the heavy license
paid by limited class of men for the
privilege of gratifying brutal taste. Re-
ferring to the case of Mcbride, beaten
to death before an athletic Club"
Under the broad protection of the great
municipal seal of the metro polis, the 44lta,
prior to the death, well said:
The law makes no distinction between "ring''
fights in club-rooms and ring fights elsewhere,
nor between ring fights with bare fists and
knuckles encased in gloves which are often
harder and better calculated to bruise, wound
and kill than the uncovered fist. The police
and some of the police judges, however, for rea-
there is distinction, and refuse to enforce the
law. Mcbride, who will probably die from the
beating he received at the hands of Frank La
Rue, is not entitled 10 much sympathy. He is
the victim of his own folly and brutality. But
this does not excuse the crime of the brute La
Rue, who with revenge and hate IN his heart
beat him to death, or of the other worse brutes
who without even the palliation of passion, and
with no motive other than the lust of blood,
howled themselves hoarse with delight while
one human being was battering another out of
all semblance of humanity. The killing of Nc
Bride, for it seems impossible that he should re-
cover, was murder, and the seconds and referees
and every spectator present are accessories
punishable equally with the principal. Nc
Brides death viii not be regretted lift lead to
the punishment of his mufderers and the
breaking up of such clubs as the Golden Gate
Athletic Club, the California Athletic Club and
other clubs of the same nature, which, under
the pretense of the encouragement Of manly
sport, are organized and maintained solely for
the purpose OF enabling members to witness
bloody prize fights under the protection of the