Page:Athletics and Manly Sport (1890).djvu/31

6 interests of humanity, at once disappear when the contestants cover their hands with large, soft-leather gloves.

There is no loss in the quality of the contest either, as those who have seen both kinds of boxing will testify. All that is worth noting and testing of courage, temper, strength, tenacity, endurance, force, rapidity, precision, foresight, can be as completely proven, or rather can be better or more plainly proven, in a glove contest than in a bare-handed fight.

Such a change as is hero contemplated was never dreamt of even ten years ago. British boxing was a lamentable exhibition at all times; but for twenty-five years past it has been sinking lower and lower in disrepute. The greatest and manliest physical exercise has been, for this reason, in danger of complete extinction.

It is hoped that the recent bare-handed fight between Sullivan and Mitchell in France will be the last of its brutal kind.

This fight contains in itself a complete