The use of the fist is almost lost in England.Yet are the people better than they were when they knew how to use their fists? The writer believes not.A fisty combat is at present a great rarity, but the use of the knife, the noose, and of poison, to say nothing of calumny, are of more frequent occurrence in England than perhaps in any country in Europe.Is polite taste better than when it could bear the details of a fight? The writer believes not.Two men cannot meet in a ring to settle a dispute in a manly manner without some trumpery local newspaper letting loose a volley of abuse against "the disgraceful exhibition," in which abuse it is sure to be sanctioned by its dainty readers; whereas some murderous horror, the discovery for example of the mangled remains of a woman in some obscure den, is greedily seized hold of by the moral journal, and dressed up for its readers, who luxuriate and gloat upon the ghastly dish.Now, the writer of Lavengro has no sympathy with those who would shrink from striking a blow, but would not shrink from the use of poison or calumny; and his taste has little in common with that which cannot tolerate the hardy details of a prize-fight, but which luxuriates on descriptions of the murder dens of modern England.But prize-fighters and pugilists are blackguards, a reviewer has said; and blackguards they would be provided they employed their skill and their prowess for purposes of brutality and oppression; but prize-fighters and pugilists are seldom friends to brutality and oppression; and which is the blackguard, the writer would ask, he who uses his fists to take his own part, or instructs others to use theirs for the same purpose, or the being who from envy and malice, or at the bidding of a malicious scoundrel, endeavours by calumny, falsehood, and misrepresentation to impede the efforts of lonely and unprotected genius?
One word more about the race, all but extinct, of the people opprobriously called prize-fighters.Some of them have been as noble, kindly men as the world ever produced.Can the rolls of the English aristocracy exhibit names belonging to more noble, more heroic men than those who were called respectively Pearce, Cribb, and Spring? Did ever one of the English aristocracy contract the seeds of fatal consumption by rushing up the stairs of a burning edifice, even to the topmost garret, and rescuing a woman from seemingly inevitable destruction? The writer says no.A woman was rescued from the top of a burning house; but the man who rescued her was no aristocrat; it was Pearce, not Percy, who ran up the burning stairs.Did ever one of those glittering ones save a fainting female from the libidinous rage of six ruffians? The writer believes not.A woman was rescued from the libidinous fury of six monsters on - Down; but the man who rescued her was no aristocrat; it was Pearce not Paulet, who rescued the woman, and thrashed my lord's six gamekeepers - Pearce, whose equal never was, and probably never will be, found in sturdy combat.Are there any of the aristocracy of whom it can be said that they never did a cowardly, cruel, or mean action, and that they invariably took the part of the unfortunate and weak against cruelty and oppression? As much can be said of Cribb, of Spring, and the other; but where is the aristocrat of whom as much can be said? Wellington?
Wellington indeed! a skilful general, and a good man of valour, it is true, but with that cant word of "duty"continually on his lips, did he rescue Ney from his butchers?
Did he lend a helping hand to Warner?
