_Punch_ was in the main a supporter of "muscular Christianity" and had already noted, with more sympathy than hostility, the encouragement of boxing as an integral part of the education of the ingenuous youth. Disraeli's Parliamentary duel with Palmerston in 1858 is described in pugilistic terms, in which the victory is given to the former "on points." But, in view of his generally humane and humanitarian outlook, he had hardly prepared us for his remarkable eulogy of the Prize Ring in the year 1860. For it was in that year that the historic fight took place between the American Heenan (the "Benicia Boy") and Tom Sayers at Farnborough on April 17, and it was chronicled at full length in _Punch_. "The Fight of Sayerius and Heenanus: A Lay of Ancient London" in the style of Macaulay occupies a whole page. Its chief interest to modern readers resides in the fact that it is "supposed to be recounted to Great-grand-children, April 17, A.D. 1920, by an Ancient Gladiator." The narrative is put in the mouth of "Crawleius" well known "in the _Domus Savilliana_[36] among the sporting men," presumably a relative real or imaginary of Peter Crawley, a well-known prize fighter. But the speaker did a gross injustice to the next generation but one when he wrote:-- 'Tis but some sixty years since The times whereof I speak, And yet the words I'm using Will sound to you like Greek. What know ye, race of milksops, Untaught of the P.R., What stopping, lunging, countering, Fibbing or rallying are? What boots to use the _lingo_ When you have not the _thing_? How paint to _you_ the glories Of Belcher, Cribb, or Spring, To _you_, whose sire turns up his eyes At mention of the Ring? [Footnote 36: Savile House, on the north side of Leicester Square, originally the residence of Sir George Savile, Burke's friend, was in its latter days rebuilt as a place of entertainment and became a resort of Bohemians and fast men about town. It was burned down in 1865 and the site is now occupied by the Empire Theatre.] The train journey to Farnborough in the grey dawn, the company, and the fight itself are, however, described with spirit:-- Not only fighting covies, But sporting swells besides-- Dukes, Lords, M.P.'s and Guardsmen, With county beaks besides; And tongues that sway our Senators And hands the pen that wield Were cheering on the Champions Upon that morning's field. We pass over the details of the fight--how Sayers was floored nine times, and had his right arm crippled; how Heenan had both eyes put in mourning--to come to the last stage:--