The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1896-12-07
The Fight a. a social Function.

The Fight as a SOctai functIOn.
A remarkable incident of the renais-
sance of the prize ring was observed in
San Francisco at the Fitzsimmons-Shar-
key fight the other night. According to
the dispatches, several hundred women
attended the event. sat it out applauded
the fighters and apparently enjoyed the
brutal spectacle. Among the women, 1t
is said, were "a number of gray-haired
matrons, whose enthusiasm on the sub
ject of athletics led them to venture be-
yond the bounds of conventionality."
The bounds of conventionality in this
matter are the bounds of propriety. 1t is
to be hoped that these matrons of San
Francisco were not representatives of the
society of that city. 1t would probably
be resented if it were said that the So
ciety of San Francisco were not as con-
sentative, refined and charming as that of
New York. Boston or Philadelphia At
the same time, it may be asserted with a
good deal OF assurance that there are no
"gray-haired matrons' of good position
in the eastern cities named who would
venture so far beyond the bounds of con-
ventionality as to attend prize fight.
1t may be said that the ladies OF Spain
attend and enjoy bull fights, which are
much more bloody and cruel than
prize fights and that nobody thinks any
the less of them for so doing. While that
is true, it is also a fact that the ladies
of Spain are the mothers of the most
cruel nationality of Christendom. The
mothers, being hardened against the in
Fiction of pain and the sight of suffering
and blood, give birth to and rear sons
who feel no compunction at inhicting pain
upon others. An example is offered in
Cuba at this very day. In that unhappy
island women and children are daily
butchered by the Spanish troops, and de-
fenseless men are hacked to pieces with
machetes. The same sort of thing is go
ing on in the Philippine Islands. Only
short while ago the cables brought the
news of a horrible cruelty to natives. by
the Spaniards that will go into history as
companion piece to the terrible Black
Hole of Calcutta. A number of natives
we're crowded into a small, unventilated
cell under ground, and permitted to die
become known as the incident of the
Black Hole of Manila.
The general in command of the war In
Cuba for Spain is a man who has earned
the title of "butcher" The man who is
conducting Spain's war in the philippines
is also known as butcher and a monster
of cruelty. They are the sons of a coun-
try whose mothers witness bull fights.
The prize fight may not be as fierce and
bloody as the bull fight, but it is none
the less a degrading, brutalizing affair
The woman who can attend prize fight,
because she likes that kind OF thing, would
attend a bull fight if she had an oppor-
tunity. She would probably also be de-
lighted to go to lynching and see the
victim roasted alive at the stake.
1t is to be hoped, and expected, that the
prize fight as a social function will not
become popular-at least outside OF San
Francisco. The people of the east and
the south desire and will have none of it.
They will insist that their women shall
retain and improve that fine sense of SYM
pathy and tenderness which is distin-
gushing characteristic of the Anglo
Saxon race.