Prize fighter

“ Thus he was continually being brought up to the fight, as a prize-fighter may be seen to be, who is carried up round after round, without any hope on his own part, and who, in each round, drops to the ground before the very wind of his opponent's blows. ”

“ That every country girl who falls has been seduced by a man from the city. [Pg 131]
§145
That an intelligent prize-fighter always triumphs over an ignorant prize-fighter, however superior the latter in agility and strength. ”

“ They say that every form of knowledge comes useful sooner or later. Certainly my own experience in boxing and my very large acquaintance with the history of the prize-ring found their scope when I wrote “Rodney Stone.” No one but a fighting man would ever, I think, quite understand or appreciate some of the detail. A friend of mine read the scene where Boy Jim fights Berks to a prize-fighter as he lay in what proved to be his last illness. ”

“ A dog is also kept to do all the barking. Our prize-fighter and chucker-out has won seventy-five prize-fights and has never been beaten, and is a splendid shot with the revolver. An undertaker calls here for orders every morning. ”

“ Fighting being a thirsty business, it was necessary to arrange for piping up water, for great tanks to hold that water, and for water-carts, hundreds and hundreds of [117] them, to peddle it among the panting troops. A prize-fighter cannot sleep out in the open, on the bare ground, and keep in condition for the ring, and a soldier, who is likewise a fighting-man but from a different motive, must be made comfortable of nights if he is to keep in fighting-trim. ”

“ The inner was for the combatants and for their seconds, while in the outer there were places for the referee, the timekeeper, the backers, and a few select and fortunate individuals, of whom, through being in my uncle’s company, I was one. Some twenty well-known prize-fighters, including my friend Bill Warr, Black Richmond, Maddox, The Pride of Westminster, Tom Belcher, Paddington Jones, Tough Tom Blake, Symonds the ruffian, Tyne the tailor, and others, were stationed in the outer ring as beaters. ”

“ Since even in the contests that are without, the crown is not only for him that striveth, but for the trainer, and the attendant, and all that help to prepare the athlete. For they that strengthen him, and recover him, may fairly participate in his victory. And in wars too, not only he that wins the prize of valor, but all they too that attend him, may fairly claim a share in the trophies, and partake of the glory, as having shared in his conflict by their attendance on him. ”

“ Prize fighting is a manly art and some of my fondest recollections are battles of the old guard—'Lanky Bob' Fitzsimmons, Tom Sharkey, Peter Maher, Jim Corbett—fighting men who fought like men. Jeremiah tells me that you are handling him. ”

“ It seemed to me that it is so generally understood that prize-fighting is full of crookedness, that I cannot understand how you, one of its chief exponents, could be ignorant of it. I thought as a matter of course that you would know all about it, and now you have convinced me that you never dreamed of it. You must be different from other fighters. ”

“ She turned and looked at him with quiet affection of boredom.
"What is the use?" she asked. "Prize-fighting is prize-fighting, and we all know what it means. The fight did end in the round I told you it would." ”

“ Who has ever garlanded with ivy the weakling in War, or decked him with a conqueror's wage? Valour wins the prize, not sloth, and failure lacks renown. For one is followed by triumph and honour, the other by an unsightly life or by a stagnant end. I, who know not which way the issue of this duel inclines, dare not boldly anticipate that as a reward, of which I know not whether it be rightly mine. For one whose victory is doubtful may not seize the assured reward of the victor. ”

“ Not alone on the fields where chivalry charges for laurels, with helmet and breastplate and lance in rest, can the true knight exultingly exclaim,
"My strength is as the strength of ten, Because my heart is pure;"
but wherever man meets man, wherever there is a prize to be won, a goal to be reached. Wealth, and rank, and beauty, may form a brilliant setting to the diamond ”

“ After the excitement, and the expectation, and the suspense, and the eagerness, came the triumph and the prize—and the chosen queen of the field bestowed upon the champion whose feats were counted best, that reward, the value of which consisted more in the honour than the thing itself. ”

“ Will you tell me what you know of the battle?"
"If your honor would like to hear it."
"I am waiting."
"Well, sir, I don't know as how you would care about hearing about what we thought of you when we saw you bearing down on us."
"Of course you were confident of victory?"
"That's true. And many a bet we made as to the amount of prize money we'd receive. You see, your honor, the men who gets most of the fighting, and who have to work the hardest, gets the least of the prize money. But when your boat fired I heard such a strange noise. It was like the tearing of sails just above our heads. ”

“ Only the strong and the brave might dare it, and the figure that held her imagination and her sympathy was not the artist, soft of hand and of speech, elaborating graces of sound and color and form, refined, sensitive, and temperamental; but the fighter, unknown and un-knowable to women as he was; hard, rigorous, panoplied in the harness of the warrior, who strove among the trumpets, and who, in the brunt of conflict, conspicuous, formidable, set the battle in a rage around him, and exulted like a champion in the shoutings of the captains. ”

“ He that shall have a close gauntlet or anything to fasten his sword to his hand shall win no prize.
He whose sword falls out of his hand shall win no prize.
He that striketh his hand in fight on the barriers shall win no prize.
Whosoever shall fight and not show his sword to the judges shall win no prize. ”

“ To this or to that other warrior sent.
The people, greedy for the fight, toward
The field is gone, and many not content
With wending thither ere the dawn of light,
Upon the place of combat watch all night.
XXVII
The foolish rabble anxiously attends
Those goodly champions' contest for the prize,
A crowd which neither sees nor comprehends
Other than that which is before its eyes.
But they who know what boots and what offends,
— Marsilius and Sobrino, and the wise —
Censure the fight, and monarch that affords
A field of combat to those martial lords. ”

“ Yet all the time he is at heart an aristocrat, who longs for armour and weapons and tournaments, and who actually, without previous training, wins the prize in the first tournament in which he takes part. ”

“ By their blazoned coats and shields she knew her knights; she saw their marvellous deeds, yet might not say who did best, nor give to one the praise. But the tournament was no longer a seemly and ordered battle. The ranks of the two companies were confused together, so that every man fought against his fellow, and none might tell whether he struck his comrade or his foe. The four lovers did well and worshipfully, so that all men deemed them worthy of the prize. But when evening was come, and the sport drew to its close, their courage led them to folly. ”

“ The intense interest excited in our minds by the sporting intelligence conveyed by the London press, and the difficulty of discriminating the plain, simple, unvarnished fact, amidst the eloquence and metaphorical colouring in which battles are narrated, renders it necessary that we ourselves should, once at least, see a prize-fight, in order perfectly to understand the events of the day, and be able to converse rationally on matters which are the subject of discussion in every body’s mouth. ”

“ Then the gentlemen, who wished to exhibit their valour, used to come in armour, and fight with each other on horseback till one was conquered, when the victor received a prize from the greatest lady present. ”

“ The arrival of a third person sets the lists for a tournament, and offers the prize for a verbal victory. But where there are only two, the armour is laid aside, and there is no call to thrust and parry. ”

“ Looking at a mere prize-fight got up by the backers and friends of each party, it seems, in its abstract position, to be an useless brutality for two men, having no personal cause of quarrel, to bruise each other for the possession of gold; but, regarding it in another light, as the necessary display of a fair standard of combat, by the rights and regulations of which, throughout the country, all quarrels determined by personal conflict are to be settled, in this light it assumes a character of safe and wholesome public example, which its most strenuous opposers cannot with justice deny. ”

“ The high social standing of the competitors, their exalted position in the arena of politics, together with the princely sum of money staked upon the issue of the combat, all conspired to render the proposed prize fight a subject of extraordinary importance, and to give it an éclat never before vouchsafed to such a circumstance since the world began. ”

“ Although small of figure I was a good athlete, and so often fighting that some of my relatives thought that prize fighting was of a certainty to be my future vocation. Mother's father and brothers all took great interest in pugilism, and they knew the game well from much practice of their own. ”

“ Since first the honour of champion was a coveted and distinguished prize for men of bold heart and iron sinew, for men of forbearing coolness and pain-defying fortitude, down to these evil days of wrangle, chaffing, bullying, and shifting, a more straightforward, excellent, simple-hearted, generous, and brave man than Tom Cribb, never held the hard-won trophy. ”

“ What chance have the honeyed words of the accomplished civilian against the simple eloquence of the soldier, who speaks with his life in his hand? Truly there were many conquests then achieved of which the world knew nothing, for the victor never came back to claim his prize. ”

“ Do you approve of the other sports, running matches, jumping matches, and all the rest?”
“Yes, Sir, of course I do,” said I.
“And you see no harm in one man beating another in a race for a prize?”
“No, Sir, no harm at all.”
“Well, but I suppose one must have activity and endurance to win in any of them?”
“Yes,” said I, “and good pluck, too, Sir. It takes as much heart, I’m sure, any day, to win a hard race as a bout at backsword.”
“Very good,” said he. “Then putting every thing else aside, tell me which you think the best man, he who doesn’t mind having his head broken, or he who does?” ”

“ There is that fine description of a prize-fight in Virgil, where the veteran—'the imperturbable colossus' of his time, I suppose we may call him—almost knocks the life out of the younger man, and sends him from the contest swinging his head to and fro, and spitting out teeth mingled with blood—rather a horrible picture! ”

“ Thirdly, when the knights present had accomplished their vow, by each of them breaking five lances, the Prince was to declare the victor in the first day’s tourney, who should receive as prize a war-horse of exquisite beauty and matchless [47] strength; and in addition to this reward of valor, it was now declared, he should have the peculiar honor of naming the Queen of Love and Beauty, by whom the prize should be given on the ensuing day. ”

“ Item, whoso breaketh three times, in the sight of the helm, shall have the prize. Item, whoso meeteth two times, coronal [72] to coronal, shall have the prize. Item, whoso beareth a man doun with stroke of spear shall have the prize. How many ways the prize shall be lost.
First, whoso striketh a horse shall have no prize. Item, who striketh a man, his back turned, or disarmed of his spear, shall have no prize. Item, whoso hitteth the toile [73] three times shall have no prize. Item, whoso unhelms himself two times shall have no prize, unless his horse do fail him. ”

“ A story of the prize ring showing two types of fighters,—one a fine specimen of manhood, the other fashioned after the brute order. There is an idyllic romance too, which of course concerns the higher minded boxer and a very human young maiden who grows jealous of her rival “the game.” The author has drawn the savage side with deft realism, both from the participant’s and the spectator’s viewpoint.
“Mr. London has in this book made a very decided advance in the matter of style.” ”

“ In my mind, then, the prize fight and fair boxing-match are the means of teaching the people to become advocates for honest and gallant decisions in all cases of quarrel, and that the encouragement of the use of the fist is the greatest antidote that can be offered to the revengeful and dastardly resort to the assassin’s knife.
“In freedom from war, in the retirement and blessings of the country, there are no gallant deeds to keep alive the emulation and courage of the English peasant ”

“ The case is frequently the same with prize fighting. Professional boxers at the beginning of the nineteenth century were to a great extent rough fellows, who were only after money, or at best notoriety. But Conan Doyle has recently given us in his Rodney Stone a masterly description of a blacksmith who was a good husband and a skilful workman, yet even in his old181 age could not resist an invitation to take part in a public prize fight. ”

“ When a man strikes a foul blow in the prize-ring the fight is immediately stopped, he is declared the loser, and he is hissed by the audience as he leaves the ring. But when a man who walks in his sleep strikes a foul blow he is immediately declared the victor and awarded the prize ”

“ Putting prize-fighting altogether aside as one of the unavoidable evils attending on this manly exercise, the inestimable value of boxing as a training, discipline, and development of boys and young men remains. ”