New-York tribune., 1919-12-31
Mr.. Bennett at the R;ngside

Nlf. bennett at the NangSlGc
If NJ. Georges Carpenter is the
White Hope of the boxing world MT.
Arnold Bennett is the White Hope
of English journalism, of reporting
everywhere. Give us his account of
the great ring battle in The Nclo
Statesman and We gladly forcgo all
the sporting writer's in their exceed
ing wisdom and expertness.
None Of the prcliminaries so es-
sential to the drama of the scene
and so utterly ignored by the hard
cncd observer were wasted on Mr..
Bennett. From the knuckle dustcr,
which his elegant and experienced
host dropped into his overcoat
pocket, to the ticket bearing the
figures $40 los. and the ferocious,
homicidal yells of "Sit down" which
greeted Mr.. Benefits effort to find
his proper seat during one of the
early bouts, everything is registered
Mr.. Bennett did sit down, rapidly;
and the attendant crouchcd on his
launches; for "this was not Tristan,
Of which ten or twenty bars don't
in the least matter--this was pugil-
ism, the most holy and impassioning
sacrament Of its world.'
One sees the great Mr.. Cochran
escorting the Prince Of Wales to his
seat, and the picture and characteri-
zation-the prince was holding
cigar Gust in the manner of his
grandfather"-are perfect, despite
the fact that Mr.. Bennett could not
recall afterward whether they wore
smoking jackets or swallowtails.
Opinion divided sharply on this ques-
ton of dress. "Some star actors
and some millionaires wore smoking
Jackets; some star actors and some
mlllionaires wore swallow tails" An
IN. c." said something; the dis
tinguished referee said something;
the gloves arrived in a box-the sub
lime moment was at hand.
As the two fighters with their vast
retinues trooped in here is the pic
ture:
Zone figure, Carpenter, stood out
astonishlngly from all the rest. All
the rest had the faces and the carriage
of bruisers. Nobody could have taken
Carpenter for a boxer. He might
have been barrister, poet, mu-
sician, Foreign Office Attach6, 8
Fellow Of All Souls; but not boxer.
He had an air Of intellectual or ar
tistic distinction. And long contact
with the very physical world Of pugil-
ism had not apparently affected his
features in the slightest degree In
the previous six years he had matured,
but not coarsened. He seemed exces-
sivcy out of place in the ring. You
could not comprehend what on earth
he was doing there. Surely he must
have lost his way,
"Beckett a magnificent form, but
with d countenancc from which you
would not infer much power of ratio
cnation, gazed long at Carpenter from
under his forehead, whereas Carpen-
tier scarcely glanced at Beckett. At
one moment Beckett appeared to you
like dumb victim trying to pcne-
trate the secrets of higher and in
scrutablo power; at another moment
you were persuaded that grim Beckett
was merely contempla ting his poor
destined intellectual victim with the
most admirable British detachment
Al one moment you fen that Carpen-
tier must inevitably be crushed, at
that If Carpenter was not toe many
for Beckett, then the course Of cviN-
zation had been very misleading.'
1t was the unanimous view Of the
experts that the course of civilization
had, in fact, been misleading. To
their earlier predictions these great
men added new clinchers as Carpen-
tier appeared. "They said he was
not in condition; they liked not the
color of his skin; they said he had
gone right off; they said he was a
dead man." So persuasive were they
that Mr.. Bennett humbIy submitted
to their judgment-forgetful of the
warning contained in what Lord
Fisher had said to him in 1915, that
his life then was nothing but one
damned expert after another"
The drama Of the fight was all to
Mr.. Bennott's Hiking, from tho rttu-