_ The trouble that is usually experienced by prize fighters in finding a place where they can fight unmolested must have been apparent to all, and _The Sun_ would suggest a way out of the difficulty.
Let the government set apart a portion of the public domain, near some military post, and enact a law that prize fighting shall be no more unlawful than polygamy, or stealing from the government. If prize fighters can have the same immunity from arrest and punishment that polygamists and defaulters have, it is all they ask, and it seems not unreasonable to ask it.
Certainly a prize fighter in whipping a friend to raise money to support one wife and one set of children, when the other fellow is willing to take the chances of being whipped, is not as bad as a praying old cuss who marries from twenty to forty feeble minded females and raises a flock of narrow headed children to turn loose after a while, with not much more brain than goslings.
If two men want to go out and enjoy "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," by mauling each others faces, why should they be pulled, and let an official who steals half a million dollars from the government, give a New Year's reception? The thing does not look right to a man who believes that this is a free country, and that every man is endowed with certain inalienable rights, among which is the right to pay his debts.
Another thing, the government, if it decided to set apart certain ground for prize fights, might create the office of "referee," and appoint some honest, square man, who applied for a consulship and there was no vacancy, to the position, with a good salary. What prize fighters need is a referee that can be depended on, and it would be no worse to appoint a government referee than it would to give breech loading arms and ammunition to Indians to go on the war-path with.
Prize fighting does not do any harm. If one of the principals is killed, which does not often occur, the government is so much ahead. The government would furnish the poison if Mormons would kill themselves. Why not furnish prize fighters an opportunity to climb the golden stairs? The fact of it is, as a people we oppose prize fighting because it is "brutal," and we go to a wrestling match where men hurt themselves twice as much as they would if they stood up and knocked each other down. We cry out against prize fights, and yet a majority of the male population would walk ten miles to see a prize fight when they wouldn't ride a mile to attend church.
We wish men would not fight, but if they want to they should either be allowed to, or else all other kinds of foolishness should be suppressed. If every respectable business man in this country could box as well as Sullivan there would not be as much crime as there is to-day. Suppose all the men that have been robbed in the past year by cowardly sand baggers, could have "put up their hands," and knocked the robbers into the middle of next week, wouldn't there be fewer headaches and heartaches, fewer widows mourning their murdered husbands, and fewer orphans?
It is against the law to carry weapons, and yet if a man opens a boxing-school to teach men to defend themselves, and fit them so they can knock the hind sights off a robber, he is frowned upon. We want to see the time when every young man has got muscle, and knows how to use it, and then there will be fewer outrages. If a respectable citizen has a daughter that is the pride of his heart, he had rather she would go to a theatre or a party with a man who can protect her with his strong arm than with an effeminate curiosity that has his brain parted in the middle, and who would be afraid to meet a dwarf in the dark.
We advise every boy who reads _The Sun_ to throw away the revolver he has bought to carry in his pistol pocket, or sell it to some coward, and use the money to hire somebody to teach him to box, and to strike a blow that will make any person sick to his stomach who insults the boy's sister. Just depend your muscle to get through the world. If the boy's people are truly good and want him to go to Sunday-school he should do it, and learn all that is good, but he should want a little exercise with his hands between meals, and learn the efficacy of two fists, for sometimes they come handy.
We have heard of cases in prayer meetings where deacons got to fighting, even in this State, and a fellow that could use his fists best stood up the longest, though a chair was used by the opponent. We know ministers in Wisconsin who are good boxers, and while they would not teach boxing from the pulpit, they would not object to see every boy know how. Since the tramps have been knocking people down in Indianapolis, we have been anxious to hear that one of them has tackled our old friend, Rev. Myron Reed; as we know that tramp would go to the hospital dead sure. Boys, learn to box. _