GREAT FIGHTERS.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume III, Issue 699, 8 May 1916, Page 11

GREAT FIGHTERS.

THE MAN WHO INVENTED THE COLOUR LINE. During the course of a somewhat turbulent career I have, I think, seen all the great fighters of the last two decades in action (says an anonymous writer in an English sporting journal). This being public knowledge, I am frequently held up to answer that fatuous question, "Who is the greatest lighter the world ever saw?'' Of course f don't know, nor does anyone else save the few very imaginative young gentlemen one meets occasionally.

| As a matter of cold fact, "the greatest fighter the world ever saw'' j wouldn't recognise, himself if he looked i in the glass, for the good and sufficient I reason that he would be unaware of his ■own identity. As a matter of perj soual opinion, I should say that Jack 'Johnson is just almost (or was) the greatest freak the ring ever produced, | Various boxers of more or less celebrity j have drawn the colour line on Johnson i just as they did on Peter Jackson. ! "What a. farce this so-called "colour jlinc" is. The only time the alleged | line materialises is when the white man I knows, or thinks, that he hasn't a cat's chance in blazes of putting one over an j his "coloured brudder." When that ' idea strikes him he rears up on his hind legs and announces to a wondering and oft-times sceptical world that while he himself is bursting with anxiety to take the hated nigger into the ring and give him a good hiding his feet, or his wife, or his creditors, or somebody equally futile, won't let him. | John L., the Inventor. ] The "colour line" was invented by a j man who, if he wasri 't the greatest ! fighter the world ever saw, was cerj tainly the greatest talker. I refer to j John L. Sullivan, who won the AmeriI can title by slugging poor old ruptured , Paddy Ryan somewhere down in the j Southern States in 1882. Just at -the ; time when John L. was champion of j America, there was "a coloured gentleman in Boston who rejoiced in the name of George Godfrey. George always laboured under the idea —call it delusion if you like to—that he could send the big fellow's championship aspirations a-glimmering if only he could get him into the ring. One night he got him into the ring, but the fight didn't take place, for the entirely adequate reason that the police arrested everybody concerned before they could get to work. I only retail this yarn in order to assure you that John L. Sulivan didn't draw the colour line too strictly when he regarded the opposing nigger as '' made'' for him. In 1890 we come to a person of completely different calibre, Peter Jackson.. Jackson chased Sullivan all over the world importuning him for a match. John L. would not listen, alleging that it was.infra dig to fight a negro, conveniently forgetting that he had only been too eager to knock the block oft' old George God- ! frey two or three years before. At last, however, John L. was run to earth, and, with the option of fighting or crawling, he elected to take what Johnson would describe as the "richest way out," and fight. Accordingly he signed articles to fight for Fulda, at the old California A.C., which is now dead, like Methuselah, and other time-hon-oured institutions. And then—oh, and then a five-franc preliminary boxer was so overcome by the prospect of drawing down so much dough that he expired in the ring, and the big fight was called off owing to the fear of legal complications. Sullivan and Jackson. Sullivan always swore that Jackson never meant business, while Jackson! said that Sullivan w T as so anxious to fight that he would certainly forget to be there on the appointed day. It was in connection with this light that Jackson coined the expression, which afterwards ; achieved world-wide celebrity, "You're talkiug through your hat." The way >' of it was.this. Sullivan was standing in the Orpheum Bar at 'Frisco, and 1 between hiccoughs, was telling an alco- •' holic audience just how great he was. ' Jackson was his theme, and the things he was going to do to Jackson—if he could; mark that, boys —would have ' resulted in the sudden demise of that most excellent negro. ! As Sullivan spat out all the horrible ] details and called for another round of ' drinks, a huge black paw was laid ' gently on his shoulder, and a silky voice ' hissed sibilantly into his ear, "Young man, you're talking through your hat." Oh, no; nothing happened! j The greatest fight I ever saw in my life was the battle between Lavigne j : and Walcott at Maspeth in 1895. They fought 15 rounds at 133 pounds, audi) Joe was to stop the Saginaw Kid or —! walk home, lie walked! hj

With the single exception of the Jolmsoii-Langforcl fight at Chelsea, this was probably the fiercest fight ever seen in any ring. It was round about the twelfth round that it just dawned upon the crowd that Lavigne was not only going to say the J5 rounds, but was actually going to win, and from here to the finish the men battled before a shrieking, yelling crowd —a crowd drunk with pride of race. As Walcott backed wearily away from a clinch in the fourteenth round I saw that peculiar grey rim around the month appear, which always characterises a negro when he's hurt or frightened, and Joe was both. Bang! smash.! biff! Lavigne tore his way in. AH that Walcott had to give he took, and then piled in with body smashes which made the Giant Killer cringe and cringe again. It was a very weary Walcott who came back to his corner at the close of the fifteenth round, and it was a very disgruntledlooking O'Eourke who "welcomed" him. The Caucasian race certainly had a chance to veil that night, and thev did. How Jeff Met Jack. Lavigne never drew the colour line, but .Jeffries did after he won the title, and it may amaze you to hear how and why-this came about. I take it you've all heard of Jack Johnson, though the majority of you probably never knew .that Jim Jeffries had a brother rejoicing in the name of Jack. Now Jack was a big fellow, and the late Mrs Rebecca Jeffries planned for Jim to retire and Jack to take his place as champion of the world. By way of finding something easy for Jack Jeffries to sharpen his teeth on they picked a big negro from Galveston, Texas, who answered to the name of Johnson. They fought in the Jeffries home town. Los Angeles, and Jack Johnson was so unsympathetic as to put Jack Jeffries down for the full count somewhere around about the fifth round. While the worthy Jeffries was snoring on the canvas Johnson walked across to Jeffries's corner and said to Jim, "Get in the ring, you big

stiff, and I'll lick you, too!" And eight years later he sure did! One of the whitest little fellows who ever lived was the great George Dixon, who in the early 'nineties was the un,-c-rowned king of the "bantams" and "feathers." For sheer coolness Dixon took the cake. I remember the night he boxed Griffo for the second time. His only anxiety was lest they should forget to have his shoes shined, as he had to go to a party afterwards. Poor little George! What a good chap he was, but altogether too fond of liquor. Oa one occasion when under the influence of drink he was sent down to Coventry to box 15 rounds with some lad that the local promoters had dug up. Now this sounds a hard thing to believe, but it's gospel truth. George went down to Coventry, boxed 15 rounds, came back to London, and couldn't remember ever having boxed at all! J'oor little George! The white race regarded him as beneath them in a social sense, but a large number of them didn't think it infra dig to borrow his money and smoke his cigars. Nobody ever thought it worth while to pay Dixon back, and of course lie never asked them. Poor lad, lie doesn't need it now!