I remember one boy in London who had learned the chin blow perfectly; he used always to mix it, at half- arm's length, at about the third round and take whatever punishment he got smiling; but would suddenly flash out either left or right with an upper cut to the chin, which, even if it didn't catch the spot perfectly, was usually sufficient to decide the fight.
It is this knowledge of the weak parts of our frame that has made prizefighting so intolerably brutal. In my time at the National Sporting Club in London there were two or three old boxers who were still hangers-on at the club, whose heads were all knocked on one side, and faces distorted with partial paralysis, the dreadful debris of human savagery. Wrestling is a far better exercise than prize-fighting and far less likely to injure any of the contestants permanently.
I must not be taken to mean that brutality is chiefly or solely English and German; it is to be found also, though in a less degree, in France and the Latin countries, as well as in northern Europe. I remember once being horrified by seeing Salammbo on the films in France. I recalled that Flaubert represented the poor fellow being beaten almost to death by the crowd, including women.
The whole brutal exhibition was put on before one with an intense realism, and the crowd delighted in the appalling exhibition. I left the theatre thinking it would take a thousand years to civilize a French crowd; and an Italian crowd is no better, and a Spanish crowd is just as bad.
I am full of tolerance, I think, for all mortal weaknesses; I can easily forgive all the frailties of the flesh and all the sins of the spirit, with the sole exception of cruelty. Cruelty to man or beast, to rat or snake, seems to me the unforgivable sin, the one utterly loathsome and damnable crime that shows utter degradation, the devil in man.
Of course there are degrees even in this villainy; cruelty to animals adds cowardice to the diabolic.
In Rome once I stopped a peasant who was beating a horse unmercifully: and when I told him he ought to be ashamed of himself, he declared that he would beat the creature as he pleased because it had no soul; and this excuse was urged not once, but twenty times, in favor of sadic cruelties practiced on dogs and cats. Was it thoughtlessness or want of imagination or something brutal in man's nature? I often asked myself, but never found an answer.
During a winter spent in Spain I got to know and like the Premier, Canovas Del Castillo. I made him a proposal which I thought interesting; that he should send twenty or thirty of the masterpieces of the Prado Gallery in Madrid to London for the season, especially a dozen paintings of Velasquez, who was then very little known in England. He said at once that if the British government would reciprocate he would do it willingly: the pictures could easily be sent by special train, or on a special warship, or in two or three parcels, so as to diminish the risk of loss. He agreed with me that the international effect of such an exchange could only be inspiring.
When I returned to England I saw Lord Salisbury on the matter, but to my astonishment he held up his hands and wouldn't hear of it, 'I am glad I have no power,' he said, 'it isn't within the range of my duties. You would have to go to the trustees of the National Gallery in order to get the permission, and I don't think they would consent.' I sounded one or two of them, but found they all wanted to shelter themselves behind the impossible.
I only mention the matter here because it was one of the many pleasant talks that made me appreciate the Spanish Premier's mind and character. Talking to him once about bull-fighting, to my astonishment he agreed with me that the killing of the horses was shamefully brutal and mere torture.
'Why not stop it?' I asked. 'The play of the chulos at first and putting in the banderillas is extremely fine and interesting with just sufficient danger to make it enthralling; and the killing of the bull with a sword thrust is such an extraordinary feat that every one would wish to have seen it; but the lancers, who on horseback torture the bull to attack the poor old horses and tear them to pieces, constitute a dreadful exhibition.'
Canovas finally declared that he would try to stop that part of bullfighting; and he kept his word. Everyone remembers the result: the mob left the bullring hissing and shouting and went after the Premier, who had to take refuge in the Royal Palace and then flee out of the back door and get away from Madrid. The thing the Spanish populace most loved was the horrible cruelty and torturing of the poor, broken-down horses.
Before leaving this chapter on prize-fighting and cruelty, I wish to record the most tragic story I have ever heard or read of. When one thinks of tragedy, one recalls unconsciously the tragedy of Socrates, or the still more terrible tragedy of Jesus on the Cross; but once many years ago, while spending a holiday in Venice, an old Venetian told me a story which seemed to me more terrible than these. I have often wanted to use it and have been afraid to, and with the passing of the years the memory became a little vague. But the other day I came across the tale again, told at full length and in its proper historical setting.
It belongs to the time of the five months' siege of Venice by the Austrians, half a century ago now. The story is already passing into oblivion, even among Venetians, but it surely deserves to be revived today. Here it is, word for word:
'The Venetian commanders determined to sever the single link with the mainland, and to blow up the two- and-a-half miles of uniform roading-the work of the oppressors-which bridged the lagoon.
'For some reason the mine did not explode; whereupon a certain Agostino Stefani volunteered to row out in his sandolo and set the matter right.
'General Cosenza accepted the bold offer, and in the face of a double fire from the forts of Malghera and San Giuliano, Agostino set out in his light craft.
'He accomplished his task unscathed, but on the return passage over the wide unsheltered stretch of water, the sandolo was hit and sunk.
'Agostino was a strong swimmer, but the current was against him, and when a patrol boat at length picked him up, he was exhausted beyond power of articulation.
'Excited crowds on the bank watched his rescue, and suddenly, 'A spy! A spy!
A traitor!' was shouted. The reported capture of an Austrian was spread from mouth to mouth. Stones and execrations were hurled at the patrol boat, and suspicion seemed to fly with them and infect the crew, who threw the speechless man back into the water and struck at him with oars and stones.
He sank just before General Cosenza's aide-de-camp proclaimed his identity and told of his heroic courage.'
What he must have thought before he sank, poor Agostino, with shouts of 'Spione; spione; traditore!' sounding in his ears!
The benefactor of his fellows-a brave soldier if ever there was one- murdered by those he had fought for, and murdered as a spy and a traitor- 'Spione! traditore!' ringing as a curse in his death-agony.
CHAPTER XIV
It is impossible to paint a complete picture of my time without saying something about Queen Victoria and Prince Edward, afterwards King Edward VII. In the preceding volume I have given some personal anecdotes about him and described how his introduction of cigarette smoking after lunch and dinner, immediately the last course was finished, put an end to the custom of heavy drinking which had been usual till his advent. As soon as the upper classes stopped guzzling, the middle classes followed suit, and ever since the revenue from drink has diminished in Britain in curious proportion to the increase of population.
Prince Edward reaped only a small part of the benefit of this change. He had a reputation for loose living and no one wished to think of him as a reformer.
Some few knew that he had all the social duties of a sovereign to perform and state to keep up on a small income and with no real power.
It was Edward who changed the traditional policy of Great Britain, which was one of friendly alliance with Germany, into a policy of antagonism to Germany and alliance with France. He was the founder of the Entente Cordiale between England and France, and accordingly the first cause, so to speak, of the World War. But in order to exhibit this change of policy in its true light as a complete right-about-face, I must first speak of his mother, Queen Victoria, and describe her influence.
It is difficult to paint a pen portrait of Queen Victoria. First of all, it must be done chiefly from the outside,
