The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1915-04-02
OPPONENTS OF BOXING. 6
 KNOCKING FOR 163 YEARS

Throughout the English world the opponents of boxing have been busy stknocking'' the game for hnearly two centuries, or ever since James F1gg introduced the sport in England. Scarcely a year passes
 without some crusade against the ssEnanly arts' in some part of the world, and when legislatures and parliaments and up1ift organizations havS nothing else to do they get out their little hammers and take . whack at pugihsm.
 The boxing game is usually said to have had It's beginning in America. with the ring battle between Jacob flyer and Thomas Beas1ey in S16, so that next year will mark the cen- tenary of the American ring. Long before that memorable contest, how ever, crusade form Of boxing had been practieed on this side of the At lantic. Negro slaves were often trained to fight. and one of thems Tom Mo1ineaux, went to England and whipped Tom Cribb. the English champion, in 1910. The black was robbed of his victory, but he was in fact, although, not in name. the first worlds champion.
 For years before the American rev o1ution there were fights and fighters on this side of the Atlantic, but the colonial bruisers were unaequainted
 
 governed the game in England. Bit ling, gouging, kicking and hitting be- low the belt were tolerated, and the bouts were as much wrestling matches, as boxing contests.
 So far as the writer can discover, after a long search of musty tonnes, the first attempt to abolish pugilism in America was made in North Caro- lima 163 years ago today, April 3, 1752, when the colonial governor. in his message to the assembly. deliver ed himself of the following:
 t'Gent1enen: I must recommend to l you in particular to take the most effectual measuresfor promoting re- Hgion and virtue and suppressing vice and immortality, which are come to such dreadful height in this prov iince I desire you in a special man ner to- take into your consideration the >barbarous and inhuman manner of boxing which so much prevails among the lower sort of people. The practice Is attended with circum- stances of cruelty and horror, and is really shocking to human nature, and I have been informed. of no less than four persons who, within these two years, have come to ta violent death by this atrocious custom"
 It seems that the fighting game fourished in spite of official prohibit tions. and about a centenary ago Dr.
 
 of Edgecomb county, North Caro- lima, of the many fights that took ! place between linen who had no enmity toward each other. He add ed: Some champions would, travel many miles to meet with a combat ant who had been celebrated as a fighter" In 1877 traveller in Lower Ca nada and the Northern States wrote
 that ssprize boxing is unknown in America but in this he was mis- 1 taken. for the British prize ring and 1 it's rules had been introduced into
 New York by the Irish several years
 before. In the west, and especially i in Kentucky, the old slaughter
 house" rules prevailed for many years and in their "fist and skull'' warfare
 the combatants take advantage, pull, | bite, and kick, and with helIish feroc-
 ity strive to gouge or turn each oth- er's eyes out of their sockets,'' ac-
 cording to a contemporary writer of
 that period.