This text was obtained via automated optical character recognition.
It has not been edited and may therefore contain several errors.

---

310
THE JOURNAL OF MISSISSIPPI HISTORY
in New Orleans was admitted by the Picayune in 1892 when Harry McEnerny, who had joined the newspaper at fourteen as a copy boy, began writing a Sunday sports column titled ?Bantam's Budget.? McEnerny later moved over to the business side of the company, but in the 1880s and 1890s he was one of the more knowledgeable sports reporters in the South. His column was reported in other United States dailies.
Mrs. Nicholson?s newspaper did not approve of prize fighting. Its editorial page expressed this disapproval as early as 1882, when the Picayune advocated that Louisiana follow the example of Mississippi and pass a law preventing prize fighting. Today?s civilized world, said an editorial, ?finds no reason or excuse for tolerating the prize ring.? The better element of New Orleans, said the Picayune, viewed prize fighting with disgust and shame.?1 But it was not the better elements which supported prize fighting, and the Nicholsons apparently realized this from a readership viewpoint, for the Picayune devoted five columns and one-third of a sixth column to the 1882 bareknuckled fight between John L. Sullivan and Paddy Ryan in Mississippi. The fight was held despite the Mississippi statute, and the Picayune editors noted that the Mississippi sheriff was ?away on business? at the time.?
Bouts in New Orleans were staged in the 1880s, leading the Picayune to note in 1885 that prize fighting ?seems to have got a hold on the minds of the New Orleans public."" Efforts by the newspaper and others to push an ordinance through the City Council prohibiting bouts within New Orleans city limits were finally successful in 1885; ordinance number 1194 declared prize fighting unlawful and subjected violators to a fine of $25
??The Prize Fight," Picayune, February 5, 1882, p. 4; ?The Prire Ring,** Picayune, February 7, 1882, p. 2.
"?The Battle," Picayune, February 8, 1882, p. 2; "Let Us Shake Hands Across the Bloody Chasm,** Picayune, same date, p. 4.
n?A Fierce Fight,? Picayune, March 28, 1885, p. 7. This comment followed a fight viewed by 1.000 persona and described by the newspaper as ?long and brutal.'*
AN EDITOR?S VIEWS ON ANTI-CRUELTY
311
or thirty days in jail." New Orleans? growing reputation as a receptive spot for prize fighting slowed down somewhat. Then, in 1889, Sullivan met Jack Kilrain in a seventy-five round bareknuckled slugfest at Richburg Hill near Hattiesburg, Mississippi, 105 miles from New Orleans. News coverage of the bout was nationwide; the Picayune sent Herman J. Seiferth to cover the two-hour fight. Although in a pre-fight buildup the Picayune had editorially deplored it as deification of brute strength, the newspaper devoted almost all of the first two pages to Seiferth's accounts of the bout, and the newspaper claimed the day after the fight to have had the results out on the street forty minutes before any other New Orleans newspaper.1'
The Picayune criticized Mississippi Governor Robert Lowry, for the Richburg Hill fight had taken place despite the state's statute and despite elaborate state precautions to prevent its staging in Mississippi. The exact location of the bout had not been known until the last minute, and customers on the excursion trains leaving New Orleans for the event did not know their destination until they arrived at Richburg Hill Louisiana Governor Francis T. Nicholls had called out the stat> militia to prevent the prize fight from being held in Louisiana." Three days after devoting 20,000 words to the coverage of the Sullivan victory, the Picayune editorially observed that the public was not sincere in its protestations against brutality in boxing. ?If public opinion were sincere," said the newspaper, then brutality ?would be driven from the ring, but the trouble
"William H. Adams, ?New Orleans as the National Center of Boxing,** The Louisiana His? torical Quarterly, XXXIX (January 1956), 96. Mrs. Nicholson's newspaper had advocated an ordinance to prohibit boxing within the city limits as early as January, 1883; see Picayune of January 21, 1883, p. 3.
'??The Deification of Brute Force," Picayune, July 8, 1889, p. 4; ?The Great Battle,'* Pica? yune, July 9, 1889, p. 1. The assertion that Seiferth covered the fight is from John Smith Kendall, ?Journalism in New Orleans Fifty Years Ago," The Louisiana Historical Quarterly, XXXIV (January, 1951), 11.
??The Capture of Mississippi,? Picayune, July 9, 1889, p. 4; Hodding Carter, ed.. The Past As Prelude, Sew Orleans 1718-1968 (New Orleans, 1968), 195.