A CHANGELING.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20039, 4 March 1927, Page 11

A CHANGELING.

DEMPSEY’S DEFEAT EXPLAINED. It seems that the news that Jack Dempsey was beaten by Gene Tunney because his milk was poisoned just before the fight is now proved to have been a wicked story and unworthy of belief at any properly constituted infant welfare centre (states the Manchester Guardian). A message from New York announces that what did rob the plucky fellow of his world’s championship was something quite different. Five days before the great contest he took a country walk through the marshes near Atlantic City and returned covered with insect bites —ho was robbed of victory through poison from mosquitoes. Well, it may be so; but even now we are not ouite sure that this is the true (or, at any rate, the final) explanation of whv Tunney was able to pound his w..y through to triumph. Why not claim that the ex-hero is still world’s champion on the grounds that Tunney never fought the real Dempsey at all? There is something very suspicious about those mosquitoes mentioned in this latest message from Now York. Is it perfectly certain that they were mosquitoes? They sound rather like fairies, who probably carried _ off the genuine Dempsey and left behind, as a changeling, an incompetent imitation solely in order that it might collect a perfectly good hiding from the now vainglorious Tunney. . „ Fortunately, the point is —as iunnej, (who is a bit of a highbrow, and corresponds with learned foreigners like Mr G. B. Shaw) might say—susceptible of proof. In the case of a suspected changeling in the old days the correct procedure was to boil a little water in an eggshell with the changeling iying in the real babes cradle on the hearth. As soon as the water boiled the changeling would vanish like a puff of steam and the genuine babe would be restored to the cradle. There is no mention of any time limit for the efficacy of this charm. So the thing to do will be to tempt Tunney and Dempscy back into the ring, and then, at the instant that the referee calls ‘'Seconds out! let Dempsey’s manager bring a little water to the boil in an eggshell. The changeling (if any) will then vanish—and Tunney can proceed to take it out of the genuine article.