Scraps.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume III, Issue 133, 9 February 1893, Page 3

Scraps.

Under the above singularly appropriate title we to-day publish a number of 'highly interesting pugilistic items supplied by Mr Pat Finn to the Melbourne Sportsman. The paragraphs in question are culled from private letters of Mr Finn’s, and as the latest is under date December 13, from Vienna, Austria, Sporting Review readers will see that we have lost no time in giving them the very latest reliable news.

Martin Costello, the one-time landlord of the Lounge Hotel, Bourke-street, Melbourne, is back again in America, where he has fought a draw with Greggains, and when the mail left was on the eve of another battle with the same pug. Costello is reported by the American prints as having won bookmaking at Flemington, and to have lost it all again in hotel-keeping in the same city. This fairy-like romance is all bunkum, says Mr Finn, and as his authority gives Mick Nathan, the retired champion lightweight, who was originally a partner in the Lounge with Martin Costello. Both Finn and Nathan smiled hugely when the intelligence reached them.

James E. Donegan and his family of “ Australian Child-trick Bicyclists,” are in Austria doing well. Peter Jackson, whose gentlemanly behaviour has made him nearly as famous as his deeds in the roped arena, is a favourite everywhere. Donegan writes of his meeting Peter, and of their joyfully cracking of several bottles together. The Australian middle-weight, Jim Hall, has now taken Slavin’s place as pet pugilist-in-particular to Charlie Mitchell, the champion of England. Jim Hall is credited with having been Mitchell’s chief witness in this case. Hall, by the way, now wears a glossy black belltopper, and sports a walkingstick and gloves. The Slavins, Frank and Jack, are both running hotels in London, and the latter is said to be outdistancing the one-in-vincible Frank as regards popularity as a host.

Connors, the wrestler, is also a boniface, his hostelry being located in Wigan, in Lancashire. Though regarded in the light of a world’s champion, this wrestler a short time back challenged a well-known English middle-weight. The conditions were that Connors should three times throw his opponent in a given time. The middle-weight made matters so sultry for the other that Connors, finding it took him so long to secure the first fall, threw up the contract in disgust, and the middle-weight scooped the pool to the tune of /"ioo.