Page:Athletics and Manly Sport (1890).djvu/27

2 Mr. Evelyn Denison, once speaker of the House of Commons, describing an interview with Lord Althorp, the minister who led the British Commons when the Reform Bill was passed, says: "Lord Althorp became eloquent; he said that his conviction of the advantages of pugilism was so strong that he had seriously been considering whether it was not a duty that he owed to the public to go and attend every prize fight which took place, and thus to encourage the noble science to the extent of his power."

"We are the Romans of the modern world," says the illustrious "Autocrat of the Breakfast Table," speaking of Americans—"the great assimilating people. Conflicts and conquests are, of course, necessary accidents with us, as with our prototypes. And so we come to their style of weapon.... The race that shortens its weapons lengthens its boundaries. Corollary: It was the Polish lance that left Poland at last with nothing of her own to bound.

"What business," continues Dr. Holmes, "had Sarmatia to be fighting for liberty with a fifteen-foot pole between her and the breasts of her enemies? If she had but come to close quarters, there might have been a chance for her."