The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1897-03-21

featS OF SandOw ana the -trapeZe per
formers of a circus, with no moral or
intellectual Improvement, perhaps, but
with no detriment to mind or health.
Those who travelled three Thousand
miles and paid $40 for a seat to witness
the battle may possibly question whether
it was not high price for tame hour,
but they will have no reason to lament
the injury to their manners or their NOR
ais.
There are great many things in this
world that man Us glad to see once but
does not care to see again.
| never say prize fight before, and
l shall not attend any more, no matter
what compensat ton may be offered-nOt
because it is wrong, but because once
is enough for me. ] feel like Lord Ches-
terrified, who, after his first days hunt
ing, inquired of his host If a gentleman
ever did it a second time
1t is hard to see how one man could
have expressed both these opinions, and
yet. even Ingalls,, the reporter, displays
a twinge of shame at being mixed up
with such spectacle
There was no occasion for Mr.. ingalls,
outwardly to extenuate what in reality
he no doubt inwardly condemned. He
was poor, had to work for n living, and
took the job of reporting. If he had to
take Job of street-car driving, he
ought to drive well, without offering
apology or caring for opinions, so Ions
as he was doing the honest thing. Be
cause he was Senator makes him no bet
ter or worse than other men, and If he
goes in to report a prize-hght, he should
take the hair and hide off the story-that
is. do it up as technically as if he were
a journeyman reporter on a New York
paper. He should have spun out the
rounds in graphic style in order to let
people know what went on, and remem-
bered that there are lots Of reporters who
are superiors of Senators.
Instead of that he tries to make 1t
appear that the prizefight is a zephyr
compared with football. Mr.. Ingalls,
had better given the display in all its
hideousness. In that way he would bet
ter have displayed a common-sense &C
quiescence in his condition. and have
given the American people tangible ar
gument with which to inveigh against
this blot on our civilization. If Mr.. In
gals had brilliantly put on the brutal
dark red colons that gave savageness as
we'll to spectators as to fighters, his
talents would not have been i'll used, and
he would have been better worth the
money paid him for reporting" Such
an account from him would have been
a sermon in itself If Fitzsimmons had
to train his outsides to stand the batter
ing that he got, what must have been the
inner training of a woman, HIS wife,
who could sit by without a change of
color, and with crimson cheeks, erupt
curses more crimson still. Then, too,
the nonchalance of those who saw-they
who could be interested only by a knock
out blow-the expressions of the faces.
of the fighters at many moments, their
most characteristic movements-well,
Mr.. ingalls, is not a reporter, that's all
he may be potential Senator even yet.
But Americans have, nevertheless,
quite good idea of this practice, which.
happily, now is able to find play, with
impunity, only in Nevada.
h. hn ,,ffn hn
Governor to the contrary.
And yet, with all aversions, why the
widespread interest in such contests?
The interest represents probably the
brute that is left in man. 1t is there;
no mistake about that. 1t shows itself
in the slowness even with which the
American Senate resigns itself to the
Arbitration Treaty, which in some re-
spects marks the greatest stride, through
the centuries, of English speaking peo-
pie.
1t may be comforting on this Sabbath
morning to know that the sentiment
against Arbitration is comparatively
within the small limits of few, and
that the sentiment in favor of legalized
slugging is practically confined to the
small limits of Nevada-the only place
recently available for the spectacle.
If the American people will keep work
ing together to get what is left of
the brute out of themselves, they will
tend toward that time when not only
may there not be legalized arenas, but
when the bloody punishment of one brute
by another, will receive condemnation as
severe as that which now arrays itself
against the duel.
It is a gain to know that the sentiment
is in the right direction-it is more than
a gain to know that the hand that is
guiding man toward a gentler communi-
cation is the same that smites clash and
conflict in all the years with that peace.
be stfll' which Gained the troubled