PUGILIST AS FARMER

Evening Star, Issue 15074, 4 January 1913, Page 8

PUGILIST AS FARMER

John L. Sullivan, the one-time famous pugilist, is now a farmer in the Abington district, MassacTmsettes. He is no longer the Sullivan whom his friends knew during the years that followed his defeat by Corbett. He drinks one, smokes little,

and never is seen in ''the haunts in which, as the idol of thousands, he spent fortunes, and almost brought his career to an end. Nothing, he says, will ever induce him to return to city life. And Sullivan undoubtedly means what he says. The year that he has been a farmer has made him in appearance 10 years younger, and the mighty right which sent many a man reeling to the -floor with championship aspirations crushed does not seem to have lost any of its power. Mrs Sullivan seems to understand her big husband, and perhaps that is the secret of their happiness. She was a widow when he married her, and comfortably well off. She loves the country, and she it was who suggested the home and the farm at Abington. Mr and Mrs Sullivan have no children of their own, but it is rare that there are not half a dozen playing about the farm, picking luscious apples and pears, or riding about on the backs of the quiet horses. ' John L. always scatters of few bandfuls of small coin among the children when he goes to Brockton or any of the surrounding towns in his carriage, and with the children he is as much of an idol as be was when no man could stand before, him in the ring. It is said of the Snllivans that no man or woman seeking alms has ever been turned from their door. Their almost dailv acts of charity have won them the love, 'of the community, and incidentally have cost them many hundreds of dollars.