Champion Blackguards.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume IV, Issue 511, 27 September 1890, Page 3

Champion Blackguards.

DEFY THE LAW. London, September 26. The pugilists Slhviu and McAuliffe were bound over io sureties of £2OOO each to appear when called on, but it is believed that thia wi’l not prevent the custodians of the peice being dodged and the fight taking place within a week’s time.

Under the heading “ A Modern Upas Tree,’’ Lloyd’s Weekly says : — One of the most fateful developments of modern civilisation is the new class of club which has sprung up and flourishes among us with the strength and rapidity of all noxious growths. The young bloods of a century ago were gentlemen ready to beat their part in any fray their folly engendered. In a later generation the Marquis of Waterford and his associates, while they tore off knockers, and pulled out bells, and otherwise made themselves nuisances, only exhibited the exuberant spirits of youth which a few years before would have found exercise in war. But in our day, when increasing wealth has created an irresponsible class living only for luxury, a new generation has arisen. The vacuous epicurean “ masher ’’ has developed the lower qualities of his nature. He does not indulge in athletics; he cares not for rowing, or running on his own account; but having the fiendish delight of a Quilp in witnessing huniah struggle, patronises the modern prize ring—now called “ a glove fight ” Men who strive to keep up prizefighting in its original form must slink away, and by secret arrangements get to their ground—nay, in the latest cases had to go to a foreign country to effect their breach of the peace. But these “ patrons of sport ” are enabled to have before them gladiators—- “ male prostitutes who sell their strength as women sell their beauty,” to use the late Lord Lyttpn’s phrase —who pommel each other as did the degraded Bomans of the later Empire, simply to make sport for the onlookers