never would have been a question raised as to the enormous superiority of Sullivan.
There are many better boxers than Mitchell in America, if not in England; but there is not one who dare challenge Sullivan. They know that this running fight in France has proved nothing against him.
In what does his extraordinary skill consist? In hitting as straight and almost as rapidly as light; in the variety and readiness of his blows; in standing firmly on his feet and driving his whole weight and nervous force at the end of his fist,—a very rare and a very high quality in a boxer; in movements as quick and purposeful as the leap of a lion. He can "duck" lower than any featherweight boxer in America; he can strike more heavy blows in ten seconds than any other man in a minute, and he watches his opponent with a self-possession and calculation that do not flurry with excitement, but only flame into a ravening intensity to beat him down, to spring on him from a new direction, and strike him a new blow every tenth of a second, to rush, hammer, contemn, overmaster, overwhelm, and appall him.
Look at "The Boxer" as he leaps on the stage and stands gazing at his opponent, waiting for the referee to call "time." That is the quivering moment seized by the great sculptor whose statue,
