Nineteenth Century “Sport.”
By Editor
THE latest move in the line of “sport” comes from New York, where the first of a series of “select” pugilistic entertainments for ladies, was recently given. Nearly all the invitations were accepted, and the “ladies” are said to have gone home in a state of great excitement, highly delighted with the exhibition, which was given by a few old prize fighters. We read with horror of the gladiatorial contests among the ancient Romans, but we have never read anything more revolting than the descriptions of prize fights, which disgrace the columns of our daily papers. There is scarcely an issue that does not contain a detailed account of one or more, with glaring head lines. This is bad enough, but when women become educated to look with pleasure upon the prize ring, how much will our boasted nineteenth-century civilization be ahead of that of ancient Pagan Rome? We do not plead guilty to being a pessimist. We claim that we look at things just as they are. It is not alone the fact that these brutal contests are becoming more and more frequent that makes the outlook so gloomy, but the fact that they are published with such minuteness of detail. The publishers of popular newspapers aim to print that which will please the most people; it is the carrying out of this desire that makes them popular. Now when papers having several hundred thousand readers find it to their advantage to devote whole columns to an account of how two human beasts pounded each other, it certainly does not indicate a very healthy taste on the part of the majority of their patrons. And the worst of it is that these reports not only supply a demand, but they create one. They also tend to beget familiarity with scenes of bloodshed; in short, they foster the worst passions of the human heart, which is “desperately wicked.” Surely it is now no tax upon one’s credulity to believe the Saviour’s assertion that the last days will be as it was in the days of Noah; the indications are strong that the days are fast approaching when the earth shall be filled with violence. Who will be warned in time to escape the destruction that shall follow?