As to the last named scourges of society, long observation and experience[10] have convinced us that we have our metropolitan and even rural nurseries for them; our “sin and crime gardens” for their special propagation, rearing, and multiplication; and we can conscientiously say, from an equally long observation, that among those thieves’ nurseries and “sin-gardens” the much-vilified Prize Ring has no special claim to be counted. These remarks have extended to an extreme length, and we will here break off, premising that many opportunities will present themselves in the course of our history to illustrate and enforce the arguments and principles here laid down. Waiving, then, all question as to its origin, the _ars pugilistica_ may be accepted as interwoven for many generations in the manners and habits of the English people; that it has become one of our “popular prejudices,” if you so please to term it; and that we will not abandon it to be suppressed by force or sneered down by cant or sophistry. It has long since, in this favoured country, been purged of its cruelty and barbarism, and restrained within well-considered bounds. No lacerating or stunning additions, such as we see pictured in our sketches of the ancient athletes, have been allowed to Nature’s weapon—the clenched fist. On the contrary, for the practice of the neophyte and the demonstration of the art by the professor, soft wool-padded gloves cover the knuckles and backs of the hands of the sparrers. Finally, foul blows, butting with the head, and deliberate falls, have been particularised and forbidden, and an unimpeachable system of fair play established, to be found in the “New Rules of the Ring.” We have nationally imbibed these principles, and hence among our lower orders the feeling of “fair play” is more remarkably prevalent than among any other people of Europe or the New World. Hence personal safety—the exceptions, though occasionally alarming, prove the rule[11]—is more general in England than in any other country. Here alone the fallen combatant is protected; and here the detestable practices of gouging, biting, kicking in vital parts, practised by Americans, Hiberno-Americans, and other foreigners, are heartily denounced and scouted; and to what do we owe these characteristics? We repeat it, to the PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE OF PUGILISM. FIG (CHAMPION)—1719‒1734. Although, doubtless, brave boxers in every shire of “merrie England” sported their Adam’s livery on the greensward, and stood up toe to toe for “love and a bellyful,” yet the name of James Fig, a native of Thame, in Oxfordshire, is, thanks to the pen of Captain Godfrey and the pencil of the great Hogarth, the first public champion “of the Ring” of whom we have authentic record. Doubtless— “Vixere fortes ante Agamemnon;” but their deeds and glories, for want of a chronicler, have lapsed into oblivion (carent quia vates sacro), and—