Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1922-03-25
FENCING AND BOXING
BY DR.. Frank Crane

g ONE time ago there was a grand fenc-
y ing bout in Europe.
M. Gaudin, the champion of the
French school of attack, contended with Sig
nor Nadi, who was the champion of the Ital-
ian school.
Their pictures were published in the pa
pers. A great crowd attended the perform
ance. They made some little stir in the world.
And yet the stir was but little compared
to that made by Carpenter and Dempsey,
and by their predecessors, Jack Johnson,
Jess Willard, and others, in their time.
Fencing will always be the sport of the
few. Prize fighting is the passion of the
many.
Swords can never be as interesting as
fists. The reason is suggestive.
In two rounds which lasted forty-one min
utes Gaudin and Nadi exchanged not less
than thirtyOne hits, almost every one of
them fatal. And after each performance all
that they produced was little Precipitation.
The points Of their swords were concealed
with button that they would not hurt
each other. But we want to see somebody
hurt. That is why we go to prize fights.
All, there is meat for strong men! There
the public can see blood, real red blood.
stream from the nose There we can have
the pleasure of watching finger, a rib, or
leg broken, and enjoy the rare spectacle
OF man splitting out his teeth
And at the last the spectators have the
exquisite delight of watching the knockout
ing for at least the space of ten counts.
In fencing they put on masks, they dull
the point of the rapier. In fencing it takes
five judges to decide whether one of the
combatants has received the death stroke.
Bah! Fencing is only a game for civilized
people. 1t is for that reason that it has no
future
We are barbarians Our civilization is but
thin veneer and we get very tired of car
rying it.
You can see how naturally savage we are
by observing children. All children love to
destroy. There is a keen delight in breaking
a window or hacking the piano that is vast
ly more primitive and abiding than glass
blowing or piano-playing.
All children love bloody stories They
want to hear Of heads chopped off and of
little boys and girls being eaten up. The
ogre in Jack the Giant-Killer and the wolf
in Little Red Riding Hood the perma-
nent stars in childhoods imagination.
Grown-ups secretly enjoy the same sort
Of thing. If we cannot kill people ourselves
we like to see them killed on the stage.
And we like to read@bout them in detec-
tive stories.
Digby Bell spoke for all Of us when he
said that he liked to have story begin with
numbering the banker in the first chapter
and work from that on up.
And we like War. We even go about sage
ly declaring that War is human nature and
people are crazy who think it can be stop
ped.
Patriotism seems to be about the only
communal passion we can indulge in, and
patriotism flags without it's regular bucket
of blood
Always that form of recreation most re-
creates us which reaches back farthest into
the history of evolution and reproduces the
most primal enthusiasms.
And prize fighting will always be more
popular than fencing for the simple reason
that men battered each other with fists long
before they punctured each other with
swords.
Copyright, 1922, by Frank Crane.)
Little Dorothy had just returned from a
short visit to her Aunt Elsa in Washington
! JUho 10 ojnic do Ina