The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1913-11-29
Ry "Gravy.")

There is a book called 'fDon Quix- ote''-a1though you low -browed, caul1-
 11ower-eared readers of the sporting
 page can't be expected to know any thing about it-written by Spanish author named Mike Cerventes. This Qufxote was the the great -reformer of his time. At that period Spain was just a, mass of political and moral corruption A reformer was sadly needed and Don Quixote decided he
 was cit" So he armed himself with
 his trusty lance and climbed aboard his steed and rode away, el1etyclatter,
 ebnt upon redressing all the wrongs from which his country suffered He hadn't gone far on his rampagin way
 when he saw what to the nude and but to Don Qufrote seemed to be 8 Crying Evil in disguise. What the Don did to those windmil1s you may
 read for yourself, and find the time
 well spent So much merely by way of introduction, and not because 1t has any connection with what follows:
 Rev. Dr. c. F. Aked is a distin- gufshed clergyman, soldier and author
 whose fame. extends all over England, his native land, and the United States, his adopted country. Lately the emln- ent minister has sought a wider au- dience by contributing to newspapers, and not long ago he gave expression
 to his views on the 'tprizefght'' and
 ..prizefghters." In so doing he didn't
 nince words, but struck out straight from the shoulder. Dr. Aked sees
 the professional boxer a t'big bu1ly's'' and he intimates that he wouldn't be much concerned about them if they satisfied their savagery" in pri- vate.
 Dr. Aked's objection to the t'brutal
 exhibitions Of boxing is that they demoralize those who see them. He <ffVnfC97 rTiXafiQI1f as a collection of beastia1 humans who delight in gore, broken bones, brutality, slaughter and sudden death.
 terThe wickedness of a city. it's knav- cry, it's thievery, it's immortality and narneIess vices gather around the prize ring Yet there is a 1eaven in this
 mass of corruption, for the Doctor
 finds it infinitely pathetic to see boys
 from good homes, finely reared, col | 1ege bred, who are paying their money 1 to see two men batter each other about the head and breast.'' One couldn't expect anything better of poor boys, who have never attended college or fashionable church, than
 that their crass and vulgar minds
 should lead them to find entertainment in s'prizehght''; but that college boys should do sony eye. mates: I
 arsk you if that isn't awful.
 But is boxing-for -tprNefghtfng, '' in the original meaning of the word, no longer exists-quite the sinister, brutal and bruta1izing sport that Dr. Aked has been led to believe? I wot not. Dr. Aked has been minister 1 of the gospel for over a quarter of 1 a century, and he has come to accept the Sunday to-meeting attitude of
 ma scuIine humanity the normal 1 type, and any departure from it as
 brutal and debased The typical
 prizeAght crowd is composed of men
 who, in church, would appear eni-
 nentIy respectable, tame and domesti- cated. At the boxing show they lack | the restraining Influence of women i and clergymen. They forget their
 affectations of the Sunday before, and l indulge the more primitive instincts that are latent in every man.
 One reads much about the horrors of the ring that exist only in the inn aginatfon of the writer. I have read | of boxers face being pounded into a puIp,'' when as matter of fact he could have been found, within half an Ihour of leaving the ring, inserting into