The trouble that is usually experienced by prize fighters in finding a
place where they can fight unmolested must have been apparent to all,
and _The Sun_ would suggest a way out of the difficulty.
Let the government set apart a portion of the public domain, near some
military post, and enact a law that prize fighting shall be no more
unlawful than polygamy, or stealing from the government. If prize
fighters can have the same immunity from arrest and punishment that
polygamists and defaulters have, it is all they ask, and it seems not
unreasonable to ask it.
Certainly a prize fighter in whipping a friend to raise money to support
one wife and one set of children, when the other fellow is willing to
take the chances of being whipped, is not as bad as a praying old cuss
who marries from twenty to forty feeble minded females and raises a
flock of narrow headed children to turn loose after a while, with not
much more brain than goslings.
If two men want to go out and enjoy “life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness,” by mauling each others faces, why should they be pulled, and
let an official who steals half a million dollars from the government,
give a New Year's reception? The thing does not look right to a man who
believes that this is a free country, and that every man is endowed with
certain inalienable rights, among which is the right to pay his debts.
Another thing, the government, if it decided to set apart certain ground
for prize fights, might create the office of “referee,” and appoint
some honest, square man, who applied for a consulship and there was no
vacancy, to the position, with a good salary. What prize fighters
need is a referee that can be depended on, and it would be no worse to
appoint a government referee than it would to give breech loading arms
and ammunition to Indians to go on the war-path with.
Prize fighting does not do any harm. If one of the principals is
killed, which does not often occur, the government is so much ahead. The
government would furnish the poison if Mormons would kill themselves.
Why not furnish prize fighters an opportunity to climb the golden
stairs? The fact of it is, as a people we oppose prize fighting because
it is “brutal,” and we go to a wrestling match where men hurt themselves
twice as much as they would if they stood up and knocked each other
down. We cry out against prize fights, and yet a majority of the male
population would walk ten miles to see a prize fight when they wouldn't
ride a mile to attend church.
We wish men would not fight, but if they want to they should either be
allowed to, or else all other kinds of foolishness should be suppressed.
If every respectable business man in this country could box as well as
Sullivan there would not be as much crime as there is to-day. Suppose
all the men that have been robbed in the past year by cowardly sand
baggers, could have “put up their hands,” and knocked the robbers
into the middle of next week, wouldn't there be fewer headaches and
heartaches, fewer widows mourning their murdered husbands, and fewer
orphans?
It is against the law to carry weapons, and yet if a man opens a
boxing-school to teach men to defend themselves, and fit them so they
can knock the hind sights off a robber, he is frowned upon. We want to
see the time when every young man has got muscle, and knows how to use
it, and then there will be fewer outrages. If a respectable citizen has
a daughter that is the pride of his heart, he had rather she would go to
a theatre or a party with a man who can protect her with his strong
arm than with an effeminate curiosity that has his brain parted in the
middle, and who would be afraid to meet a dwarf in the dark.
We advise every boy who reads _The Sun_ to throw away the revolver he
has bought to carry in his pistol pocket, or sell it to some coward, and
use the money to hire somebody to teach him to box, and to strike a
blow that will make any person sick to his stomach who insults the boy's
sister. Just depend your muscle to get through the world. If the boy's
people are truly good and want him to go to Sunday-school he should do
it, and learn all that is good, but he should want a little exercise
with his hands between meals, and learn the efficacy of two fists, for
sometimes they come handy.
We have heard of cases in prayer meetings where deacons got to fighting,
even in this State, and a fellow that could use his fists best stood up
the longest, though a chair was used by the opponent. We know ministers
in Wisconsin who are good boxers, and while they would not teach boxing
from the pulpit, they would not object to see every boy know how. Since
the tramps have been knocking people down in Indianapolis, we have been
anxious to hear that one of them has tackled our old friend, Rev. Myron
Reed; as we know that tramp would go to the hospital dead sure. Boys,
learn to box.