PRIZE-FIGHTING.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 10498, 5 July 1910, Page 6

PRIZE-FIGHTING.

FOLLOWERS OF THE GAME. [By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.] f '■■'■ -* (Per PriEss Association.) ~RiSiTCd Jiilv % at 10.10 p.m. "Reno, July 4. Special trains are arriving halfhourly. Many are sleeping in the open. JVIr Schwab and other millionaires are living in their private railway cars. The streets are thronged with hungrycrowds seeking entrance to crowded restaurants. Exorbitant prices are charged for food and drink. Others are Visiting the camps ot Jeffries and Johnson. The saloons and gambling halls are closed.

THE CAMPS OF THE CONTESTANTS

On Sundav the boxerS were'idle for; the day. Only his intimates saw' Jeffries. ' ' ' ~v The nigger's camp resounded with songs and music.*,» ■-:■■■■ :v'"''.--.t..-:<>»-..''. A ■•'?' Crowds of -Calif orn'ian enthusiasts; have arrived, and are favoring Jeffries'. Many consider Johnson will not last' twenty rounds... ,s .•,■.:" "■', -. v Corbett, Kilrain,- -Ba'ttling - Nelson,.' Fitzsimmons, Sullivan, Burns, _Lang, Slavin, Sharkey, . Langford, and Ketchell have arrived. ■>". : '..*)'£~/>»;i' : .-\ ■ ' •> THE ARENA. The arena is a mile,and a-half from the city. It is three hundred ' feet square, with a twenty-seven foot platform. The centre is below the platform. ; H ■'' r'"".''■'■. . ' - Each' row of . seats is five inches higher than the one before it, and the seats are so arranged that the spectators can see between the heads of those: in' front. The ring therefore appears to be circled by sloping walls of faces to a height of thirty'reet. ' ' Telegraphs and telephones are supplying bulletins at the music halls and other places, where bulletin boards are arranged. . INTERVENTION OF PROVIDENCE. Received July 5, at 0.10 a.m. Reno, July 4. Some of the negro churches have invited members to meet and pray and sing until Johnson wins. The progress of the fight will be shown on screens above the pulpits. The prisoners of Chicago gaol have been, privileged, to operate a special wire giving bulletins'of the.fight. Received July; 5, at-8.45 a.m.: - New York, July 4. Jeffries passed Sunday lolling .on a shady lawn. Johnson .walked > .eight miles: and attended a reonfleitt,, where he played his favorite bass viola. He declares his weight is 2061b5, and says: "The tap gong' will be music to me. If i;Jjeffries. beat's me I will be the first to 'congratulate him.V, ( , V..•-; . .-j:..,-.. "Received. July 5, at 9.35 a.m. ■ r4> ■■■;' i T. ' Reno, July 4. ; -•■" There are crowds of roughs, thieves, i and*: ;sharpers here.'. The £ police are farmed with rifles, and ..revolvers;, the bancs'are guarded and the streets 'patrolled night and day. £BOOO to £SOOO has been staked on Jeffries in one wager. M Pittsburg the authorities will not allow a : neg'ro parade in Johnson's 'honor and trouble is tlireatened. London, July 4. The London music halls have made arrangements to announce the result of the fight. Received July 5, at 11.30 a.m. >:..,■ .. . Reno, July 4. ' 'Johnson landed the first short blows on the face, and clinched.for.imost of the first round, which was" tame, Johnson smiling. Jeffries landed his right on the stomach in.the second roundy the.negro retaliating with two upper cuts. . In the third round Johnson reached Jeffries' face several times., Johnson was leading on points. Received July 5, at 0.10 p.m.

,• Reno,' July 4. Jeffries got first blood. In the fourth round Johnson returned with a left on the mouth. Jeffries forced the negro against the ropes with several short punches. ' ; -"" In the fifth there was an exchange of blows, Johnson cutting Jeffries' lip. They eased off -with a. clinch, both men bleeding. y In the sixth round they were fighting cautiously. The,jjegro landed and frequently drew blood from Jeffries' nose, and closed/his right eye.:. The round was, all in. Johnsanls,favor. In the next: round. Johnson landed repeatedly on Jeffries' sore face and eye, and got in same.upper' cuts on the jaw. The negro's fighting way was aggressive all through. , , Th eighth round Jeffries landed two on his opponent's face, but the remainder of the bout was tame. , , ~ In round nine Johnson lands hard and frequently, Jeffries bleeding freely. This too was Johnson's round. . . .

Received-"July 4, at'o.3s-p.m. ;•• \ " Reno, July 4

There was little life in the opening of the tenth round. A long clinch was followed, by-■ infighting ' and ' wrestling. Johnson: got home repeated blows and did; most oi: the leading. In the next round Jeffries landed" a hard blow, but was fighting wildly. The negro retaliated with success, and again had all the' best of the round. In the twelfth Johnson repeatedly hit his antagonist on the.mouth,..causing Jeffries to bleed freely. One blow knocked Jeffries' head, back, a fpot., ': Jeffries was knocked out in'" the fifteenth round. ;

' .... ; JEFFRIES v.. JOHNSON. ENORMOUS £. S r .-P.. FIGURES. : At' "Reno,' • Nevada, 50,000 people will pay £150,000 to watch the fight between Jeffries and; Jbh.ns.bh for the\ heavyweight .championship of the world. Thirty million citizens of the United tSates will.- "follow the fight" in the newspapers,'and afterwards pay anything up to 5s a head to see it, reproduced'in the moving pictures. "At least ,70,0.00,000 throughout, tlje world will "da-the sajmej '.'. .V r i r ,,, Coming to'the expenditure oh the fight; the figures, given, are. staggering, no less a sum than £2QjOOQiQOO.'being the .amount that w,ill be- spent .directly or indirectly.' The .purse for which the fighters will contend is £50,000. From 50.,000 to 100,000 persons .will travel f/to •■' Rehp, Nevada, where the battle will'take" place. 'ln hotel bills, railroad fares, and other ways, it is estimated; • that these visitors will spend ;; at least; £60,000. In bets £1,000,000 will change hands. On. the day: of t;the fight' every great newspaper in the United .SjtsjteS will;,have, representatives, as, the ringside.,,, Hundreds of thousands of words will go.p.ver the wires and the cables to all parts'of the world. Another £1,000,0,00,. would barely cover the cost,of tellirig'the balance of those -•'interested,., and , not .at the ringside, the result of the-fight. The gate, receipts, will, undoubtedly "amount to "£IOO,OOO, and probably more. The price of, the seats' has. been fixed at from £1 to £lO apiece. '.There is, too, the money which will l)e spent for newspapers all over the world on that day. Perhaps £400,000, as a, figure is not excessive. Here were have more than £4,000,000 already. The greatest money distributor-will be the moving picture companies. They are reported to.-' have, paid , £40,000 Ibr the-privilege of talcing film's of the battle. The moving picture trust expects to make*-at least £12,500,000 out of the .fight.-,- The-'Stake is greater than any- other offered, ilf is said that the. winner of the fight will receive £35,000 when he gets his share of the purse and the moving-picture bonus. If .--the fight had .continued for ,45 rounds of three minutes each this would be at the rate of £279 a minute.

SECRET 0? .THE EXCITEMENT

After all, says an exchange, "it."'is not the fact that two big men arc to battle for the world's fistic supremacy that has" caused the present excitement—nor the fact even that one of them is Jeffries, a man who has never known defeat. Nor is it because the contest carries any-international issue. A contest between two white men, no matter what their calibre and nationality, would not have caused a tithe of the pother. The reason for it all, of course, is simply that the contest is nlore than merely man against man-V-more even than nation against nation. It is race against race—black against white. Except to the men -themselves and.tne

promoters of the affair, the title and monetary emoluments that go with the victory are very small things indeed. The white man is entering the ring to assert the superiority ol his follows over their hlack brother—the black man is carrying into the ring the hopes and aspirations of the thousands ol descendants of Hani in America, who look to him to force upon the white man a sense of the negro's superiority id at least one brunch ot allans. Thus is opened up the question which is vexing many in the States: Given a sense ol physical superiority, to what lengths may not the negro s conceit and longing to "get oven take him ?