A FAMOUS PUGILIST.

Greymouth Evening Star, 14 February 1918, Page 6

A FAMOUS PUGILIST.

JOHN L^LLIVAN. INCIDENTS OF HIS LIFE’S HISTORi'. (By “Looker-on.”) A cable message received last week announced too awith of John L. Sullivan, tlie most famous, most popular and most remarkable of American pugilists. Seeing tue gredt interest taken in this line of sport locally, some clippings of incidents in the life of the famous pugilist may be interesting. This is'a picture of Sullivan as ho appeared in j. 913 : uld John L. Sullivan back in the rin’g ! Shades of the past, and memories, mellowed by time, since first wo saw him; an Adonis, worthy of being chiselled in imperishable stone, leaps lightly into the ring at Mississippi City, and faces the redoubtable Paddy Ryan in .a. bare-knuckle fight for the “Police Gazette” championship and 10,000d01., put up by Mr. Richard K. Fox. Now grizzled arid worn, with a paunch traditionally described as aldermanic in its proportions, barely able to project his ponderous form through the ropes, he re-entered the ring at Oakland, Cal., the other night; not as a. fighter this time, but as a referee, and, incidentally, as an angel of charity, soliciting alms for the poor and needy ones made homeless and desolate by the recent floods which swept the Ohio Valley.

Sullivan is now an old man. His hair is white and his moustache is grey, but his voice has lost nothing in power or deepness. The Big Fellow has been riding on the water wagon a great deal of late and still possesses traces of his wonderful physique that made him famous the world over as a pugilist. But his heavy frame encased in rolls of avoirdupois makes it necessary for him to fairly waddle when he tries to navigate. Sullivan aiways possessed a remarkable constitution. In spite of the constant dissipation, the drinking and allnight merrymaking which has marked his life, a physical! who operated on him several years ago for strangulated hernia told Sullivan that he was otherwise in perfect health. And so to-day John L. says he could knock out any of the big pugilists with the famous old right-hand smash on the jaw—providing, of ccuhse, he did not receive a sleep-jiroducing wallop first. Time, experience, and many hardships have served to polish off the rough edges in Sullivan until he has become a mildmannered. good-natured old gentleman. True it is that flashes of the old temper., appear now and then, but John L. dofes not care for the strenuous life that used to get him into the limelight frequently and . caused all sorts of trouble for him wherever he went. SULLIVAN’S FAITH IN HIMSELF. Sullivan’s strenuous life did not apparently show its effects until he was matched to fight James J. Corbett at New Orleans in September, 1892. When Corbett challenged the Big Fellow his audacity created surprise. The “gentlemanly boxer” had won soine fame in California by fighting a long battle with Peter Jackson, but that, in the estimation of Sullivan’s loyal followers, did not entitle him to a match with the Boston “strong boy. ’ ’