One day several of us had been sparring in my rooms, and we left off just when it was too late to go for a walk and a little too early to get ready for dinner; so we walked across to Tom Gate and stood there smoking and watching the passers-by. As we were talking, there came along a very pretty girl, very smartly dressed, under full sail (and it was full sail in those crinoline days, of which John Leech was the recorder). Somebody said, “Oh! look—what a pretty girl!” “Ah!” said Aaron, “I don’t think much of her. Why just look at her feet! She’d frighten a worm in a half-acre field into fits if he saw her coming in at the further end of it.” Talking of boxing, it appears to me that the difference between the fighting of the days of which I am writing and the fighting of to-day is more than a question of gloves or no gloves. The gloves may save a certain amount of disfigurement which was caused by the cutting of knuckles; but as a guarantee against risk to life they are useless. On the other hand, the theory of the modern school of boxing points to far more real danger than was run by the prize-fighters of my day, such men as Ben Caunt, Bendigo, Nat Langham, Tom Sayers, Bob Travers and a host of other famous pugilists. They continued the traditions of Tom Spring, Cribb, Jackson, Molyneux, the men of the Georgian days. Hitting was straight from the shoulder; “hooks” were practically unknown, and the sickening body blows rare indeed; the face was the target, and the infliction of black eyes and a bloody nose represented the punishment which it was sought to inflict; in the great fight between Tom Sayers and Heenan, of which I shall hope to write later on, I cannot call to mind the delivery of a single body blow, certainly there was not one that had any significance; in teaching, the first-rate masters of the art, Nat Langham, Hoiles (the Spider), young Reed, used to make their pupils defend the body by the position in which the right arm was carried, but the attack was always directed at the head—mainly at the eyes. In the old straight fights, therefore, there was unquestionably much ugly mauling, but probably less danger than exists in these days of gloves, and hooks on the jaw, and deadly punches over the heart and vital organs.