JOHNNY SUMMERS'S BAD BREAK.

Writing m a London paper, "Corinthian," commenting: on the Summers — Marriott contest, says: — I think it is a natural question: Has Mr. J. W. H. T. Douglas received from the Board of Control a certificate which stamps him as an approved referee? Some gentlemen hava received that hallmark of excellence and knowledge and if the 'boxing public count for anything near to the equivalent of the importance occupied by " the Boxing Board of Control, it is due to them to tell them if the captain of the Essex cricket team has been given a certificate which guarantees him as being a -man who can eliminate prejudices, recognise points and give sound decisions upon boxing contests that are important, not only to the principal contestants, but also to the boxing public m general. I remember one of Mr. J. W. H. T. Douglas's decisions some years ago, when he had no thought of joining the army, m which wonderful institution decisions are good or bad according to the rank of the man giving the decisions. He struck me then as a man who would make a splendid officer; he disqualified that wonderfully-cunning boxer- the late Digger Staniey, for holding. WHEN THE REFEREE WAS RIGHT. In that decision Mr. Douglas was unfortunate, for at the time that he ■ declared. Curley Walker the winner the latter was holding hard on to Stanley's middle. Nevertheless, the verdict was all right; the man who was m a position to give that verdict gave the correct one at the wrong time, which is to write that Stanley, having earned disqualification, eventually got it. I refuse to think for a moment that that decision was m any way the result of prejudice. For my part, I am a weak-minded person who might have been prejudiced to the extent of thinking that, as referee, I should keep a sharp look-out for Stanley's holdings; but I do not think that Mr Douglas is such a weak-minded person as myself. When Johnny Summers met Bob Marriott for the light-weight championship of Great Britain and Ireland at the National Sporting Club, - I went there quite thinking that Marriott, with his advantage of years would be very fast to acquire points. I did not give him credit for being so clever as to spoof an old boxer like "Young Mr. Douglas" into creating a record for disqualifications. MARRIOTT'S SPECIALITY. How many contests has Marriott won since he became a professional? How many of those contests have been won because of the disqualifications of Marriott's opponent? How long is Marriott going to use the referee as a means of getting through to the winning side? I read the other day of a gentleman who had refereed over 5000 contests. If that gentleman had been referee m the Summers-Marriott business the latter would have been cautioned just as frequently es Summers was. There are different kinds of holding. A man may hold because he finds that that is the only way of keeping himself clear of serious punishment. Another man may hold because he has to do it m self-defense — because his opponent is holding and would get m blows that, as a consequence of that holding, can only be avoided by coun-ter-holding. It was the latter kind of holding that Summers was doing-. Marriott was responsible for the initiative m the matter of holding, and because the apprentice-referee did not see things that way, Summers, after nineteen years of good and clean boxing, was disqualified m a championship contest for fouling. No wonder that the members of the N.S.C. said hard things about the decision and the giver. They have more admiration for Summers as a boxer than they have for the referee as a referee. Mr. Douglas, I am sure, thought he was right, and that being so, no one . can say anything really severe about the mistakenness of his decision. PENALTY OF HONESTY. When, m the tenth round, Mr. Douglas stopped the bout, I was looking at Marriott particularly, and the emphatic way m which he turned towards the referee with the idea of laying some sort of verbal protest against the stopping was quaint. I looked then at Marriott's corner, and the consternation upon the faces of the seconds there was similarly quaint. Then it was seen that the referee was pointing towards Marriott's corner thus indicating the winner. For speedy change of expression you would find it hard to beat the faces of the winner's seconds. Those faces became radiant, and those of us who were neutral grieved because Summers, after nearly twenty years of clean boxing, had found disqualification m a championship. Summers suffered the penalty of being honest. He had not been cunning enough In his delinquencies. He

had merely held when Marriott's holding made it imperative for Summers to hold or be pulled into a false position. The first holding was not so obvious as the second holding, and the referee did not realise that the second holding was a consequence of the first, which was Marriott's. NOBLE'S TWO CONTESTS. Marriott is the holder of the new light-weight belt, for he received the verdict of the referee. He is a master of tricks that make opponents do those things which bring about disqualifications, and I really think that Marriott could make himself an excellent champion of Great Britain and Ireland. At^ present he is an accidental champion, 'and the fact that he was leading on points at the time when he won, as a consequence of the disqualification of one of the cleanest boxers that Great Britain lias ever known, will not convince anyone that he is a better boxer than Johnny Summers. At the National Sporting Club next Monday there is to be a contest for the bantam-weight championship between the present holder, Tommy Noble, and Walter Ross, of Glasgow. Yet Noble fought a twenty-rounds contest with Eugene Criqui m Paris on Friday night. What is Noble going to be like on Monday? Does he regard the affair as being so easy that he can afford to take any sort of old liberty beforehand, or does Noble think that the hoJdership of the Lonsdale belt is riot worth worrying about? However fit' Noble is, he will have no end of a job to beat Ross, and on top of his hard contest with Criqui he will have a rough time ot it at the iN.S.C. on Monday. Possibly he will be disqualified. There have been times when he has deserved it and not got it