In This Corner...

During her 15-year-long parliamentary career, peppery Laborite Edith Summer-skill, doughty feminist and onetime Minister of National Insurance, has outraged many a British male by views that ranged from ringing denunciations of bacon & eggs for breakfast to a demand for a law requiring all men to tell their wives how much money they earn. Four years ago, when every British man worthy of his gender stood breathlessly awaiting the first round of a long-heralded bout of fisticuffs between two gentlemen named Lee Savold and Bruce Woodcock, Dr. Edith threw a haymaker at the manly art of the prize ring itself. "The Woodcock-Savold fight and all similar spectacles," she announced at a garden fete, "are neither amusing nor instructive. Mothers and teachers must instruct small boys that fighting with fists or atomic bombs is uncivilized."

The Critical Ridge. In the verbal free-for-all that inevitably followed this first darting rabbit punch, Edith more than proved her talent for infighting, and soon attracted the attention of an important matchmaker. Last December London's learned and respected lawyers' debating club, the Hardwicke Society, invited Dr. Summerskill to come and stage a few fast rounds of debate at the Inner Temple with Britain's big fight promoter Jack ("Mr. Boxing") Solomons. The proposition : "That this house wishes professional boxing to be banned."

Edith (weighing in at an estimated 150 Ibs.) came out swinging a white skull which she had just taken from a cardboard box. On it she indicated what she called "the sphenoidal ridge." When a head is punched, she went on to explain, the brain is knocked against this ridge, and punch-drunkenness results. Sixty percent of all fighters, said Dr. Summerskill, end by becoming permanently punch-drunk. Beefy

Promoter Solomons (196 Ibs.) countered with a fast one-two. "I challenge these figures," he said. "Gene Tunney was so punch-drunk that he married -L-8,000,000, and Jack Dempsey proposed to a woman worth 35 millions. I wish I was as punch-drunk . . ." The decision went to Edith, but Jack came out of the ring determined to get a return match.

The New Fight. Last week Fightman Solomons saw his chance, when his old adversary led a deputation to the Treasury's Financial Secretary to urge continuance of a 331% tax on boxing admissions. At the next general election, announced Solomons in a rage, he will stand for Parliament as an Independent against

Laborite Summerskill in her own constit uency of West Fulham. "Don't think I'm kidding," he roared, downing a quick one in the Albany Club bar. "I mean it. This is going to be a knockout victory!"

Sniffed Dr. Summerskill, with the age old confidence of a real pro: "I regard Mr. Solomons as a featherweight. I think he ought to discuss the matter with [my last opponent], who left Fulham immediately after the contest." The early betting odds suggested a general lack of confidence in Promoter Solomons' ability to protect his sphenoidal ridge.

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