The Prize-Ring served its turn and passed; and modern boxing, roughly, fills the gap. At present we do not see why modern boxing should not go on indefinitely. For all that people say human nature has changed, does change, will persist in changing, and—we dare hope—for the better. By modern standards the Prize-Ring was brutal, just as the execution of young lads for sheep-stealing was brutal. The same issue of the Times in June, 1833, which reported the acquittal at the Hertford Assizes of Deaf Burke for the manslaughter of Simon Byrne (See Chapter XIV, Part I.), informed its readers that a man found guilty of stealing spoons to the value of 27s. had been sentenced to transportation for life. Human nature has rebelled against the greater brutality as it did against the less. And war is the ultimate expression of brutality in man, and as we have seen only too lately, a brutality which carried to its logical conclusion (or very nearly) surpasses anything in that sort that mankind has been guilty of throughout the ages. A case, you say, against the truth or hope or possibility of change in human nature? Not quite; for human consciousness did, even before the German war, begin to realise what war would mean, and since then has made, is making, genuine efforts to withstand the tide of what pessimists regard as an inevitable tendency.

But apart from war in which we now know that “fair play” is ridiculously impossible, a little friendly hurting of each other in a roped ring and cold blood will do no harm to any two men. Not as a preparation for the hardships of warfare, not necessarily as a means of self-defence, but in view of a fine ideal of physical fitness, the strain and pain of violent athletics should be perpetuated. 202 And this, apart from the fun of the thing (which after all matters most) is the excuse and reason for amateur boxing. So let boxing be regarded as a sport, and let us leave it at that.

Old prejudices live with extraordinary vigour: and boxing—the very fact of it—the peaceful and positively harmless encounter of two men with well-padded gloves stirs the deepest rancour still. We are not surprised at this rancour in people who are not English, French, or American: most of us have to take their point of view for granted, because we find it so difficult to capture. We think that bull-fights are barbarous, and a friend of mine who organised an amateur boxing competition in Monte Video and tried to hire the bull-ring for the purpose was prohibited by the Uruguayan authorities because boxing was—barbarous. You come up against a brick wall sometimes, and you can’t see through it, so it’s not the slightest good trying to explain the plants which grow on the other side.

But in England, and in America too, the prejudices of the “righteous overmuch,” in fact, the prejudices of the Puritan tradition against the Prize-Ring have lived on to regard modern boxing in a similar light. My personal prejudice against overmuch righteousness and the Puritan tradition make the gist of my researches............