I would be surprised if there was much boxing in any schools today. I'm pretty sure my old prep school doesn't do it, and my public school didn't even when I was there. But there are rules and in youth boxing protective gear is worn, etc etc.

Rugger is different - the objective is not to maim the opponent - although it often looks like that! Curiously I think serious injury is rarer in rugger (now that tackling at the knee is not the norm) than in association football which is hell on ankles and knees.

Now back to Backwoodsman. A relative of mine married a plod not long ago, one of the posh ones a "high flyer" from Hendon, and his mates at the wedding, all other posh plods, seemed frankly rather less palatable than rugger buggers, with a very blokish uncouth attitude. Dixon of Dock Green is rare. Yes, they have an unenviable position walking the tightrope between not doing enough and doing too much, but that is no excuse for the sort of thing that we know was endemic in the Met a few years back.

There again I've hardly ever met anyone who opted to joint the military who didn't seem to have the same sort of attitude that force is more to be enjoyed than reserved until absolute necessity, although the RAF seem less like that.

You won't find me defending any bent lawyers. It is professionally improper knowingly to assist ones client to advance an untruth, and indeed I am right now working on a dossier on a partner in one of the big TLA lawfirms with a view to reporting him to the Solicitors Regulation Authority. However, although standards are not what they were, bad apple lawyers are I think in the UK very much rarer than in other professions.