MANLY SPORTS.

What are manly sports? Every age and every stage of civilization has had its answer to this question. There were the foot-races and wrestling-matches of gentle Greece, the beastly gladiatorial spectacles of butcherly Rome, the tournaments of the era of chivalry, the bear-baitings of “Merry England” which roused the wrath of Hudibras, the sword combats and cudgel-playing of more modern days, described by Thackeray in “The Virginians”—the days when Figg was champion. Then came the “fistic” contests chronicled by John Wilson and patronized by the nobility and gentry. All amusements once in fashion die hard. In our own time there is a little cock-fighting, occasional dog-fighting; nor is the killing of many rats by one terrier, “the celebrated dog Billy,” or any other dog celebrated by some other name, altogether an antiquated pastime. But it must be admitted that these entertainments are not much in vogue, and principally interest the denizens of the beer-shops. By some, what are called “field sports” are considered to be preeminently “manly;” and some deem it manlier to shoot ployer and snipe than to bring down the slower-winged partridges and quails, while boys regard it as the hight[sic] of “manliness” to murder the plump robins. To walk a thousand miles in a thousand hours is doubtless a virile exploit, although we remember that a woman once undertook the feat in this city, and broke down, either through fatique or brandy.

In the Tribune of the 29th ult. we chronicled a prize-fight in Ohio, and a boat-race in Worcester between the boys of Harvard and Yale. We cannot but think that these two events fitly represent the extreme of modern amuseuments—the pleasure of blackguards and bullies, and the “sport” of gentlemen and scholars. Why prize-fighting is always spoken of as “manly” passes our comprehension. It may be tigerish, it may be taurine, it may be unwomanly, but manly it certainly is not. Two stout fellows, after much preliminary training, after bringing their physical health to perfection, after exercising and sweating in blankets, and resolute abstinence from rum, after long sparring at a stuffed bag, meet by stealth in some place unknown to the police, to ruin the work of weeks, to knock out each others’ bright eyes, to blue and blacken each others’ satin skins, to break each others’ jaws-bones, to flatten each others’ noses, to hammer each other out of all semblance of fair humanity; into shapeless, pulpy, bleeding, palpitating masses of mere butcher’ meat, or rather into meat which no respectable butcher would disgrace his stall by offering to sell—into mere carrion, with just life enough left in it to swear by, or rather for those who have lost their bets to swear at! And this is manly sport! This is an event important enough to be telegraphed to the newspapers! People say—Christopher North used to say: “Well, it is not very pleasant to look at, but it makes men brave and honorable, and it tends to prevent the use of daggers and pistols in private combat.&rdqou; Unfortunately, here it does nothing of the kind. The men who fight with their fists in the ring are always the men who carry their bludgeons and bowie-knives and six-shooters into the combats of the bar-room and the brothel. If any dispute arise, among the spectators of the “manly” renconters, it is never settled by boxing, but always by shooting or stabbing. The stuff published in the sporting journals about fair play, and “the rules of the P. R.,” and gallantry and championship, is all the merest bosh in the world. Pugilism must always have been a brutal business—it is now, if possible, more brutal than ever.

It is a relief to turn from this brutish business to the truly “manly” encounter of the boatmen; but the very full account which we have already published of it, renders extended comment unnecessary. The need of physical exercise by the student may be considered a modern discovery. Within our own time is was thought [ ]ther than else dishonorable for a literary man [to] exhibit the evidences of robust health. The [Pr]esident of a College always quoted “Sana saens in-sano corpore” to the Freshmen, and there his responsibility ended. There were two ways in which a mild-minded student could get exercise—he could take long constitutional walks, or he could split and saw wood. A walk taken for the mere purpose of walking never did anybody much good. Especially if the brain were kept still at work solving mathematical problems, or scanning the lines of Horace. Dyspepsia was the one member of the four classes who never graduated. The Halls resounded with the groans of one universal stomache-ache; many a scholar who would give you accurately enough the Etymology of “chyme” could never by any possibility keep his supply of that necessary fluid pure; and the poor student by hard study of the dinners of the Greeks and Romans lost the power of digesting his own. This sad state of affairs necessarily arrested the attention of the Faculties—Prof. Hitchcock, Prof. Muzzy; other Professors began to meditate upon the subject of digestion as connected with baccalaureate results, and the consequence is that almost every respectable College has a gymnasium and a boat club. Andy temptation which tears a student at proper intervals from his easy chair, his books, his stove and his tobacco-pipe, deserves to be encouraged; and as Carlyle much praises a manufacturer who, albeit a Quaker, brought for his workmen a drum, so we shall think none the worse of any Senatus Academicus which may vote to each of its four classes a boat! It might be called navicula in the statutes, which would renter the whole proceeding classical and proper.