Note 38 — Chapter II · (continued 2)
Reading edition
No doubt many of the weak-kneed brethren, the disciples of a flabby, invertebrate pseudo-humanitarianism, will feel surprised, if not scandalised, at this claim of Lord Shaftesbury as a patron of pugilistic practice. His lordship’s Christianity, however, has always been practical, and of the order called “muscular.” Witness his gallant successful efforts to emancipate the poor little white slaves in our factories by his glorious Ten Hours Bill, and other humane legislation—legislation, let it never be forgotten, opposed by John Bright and the Gradgrind social reformers of the doctrinaire and politico-economical kidney. The friend and benefactor of the Street Arab, the Shoe Black, and the founder of Ragged Schools bore outspoken testimony of his admiration of boxing only a few weeks since in a speech at Exeter Hall, at the Young Men’s Christian Association, wherein he recommended sparring with the gloves as a gymnastic exercise of high value, and recalled, at eighty years, the days when he was himself accounted no mean antagonist, and “reckoned a good boxer among those who were judges of the art.” His style was worthy of a Homeric hero—a Nestor of the Ring.