An Unlucky Title.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume IV, Issue 202, 7 June 1894, Page 7

An Unlucky Title.

In the course of an interview with a . Melbourne Sportsman man, Mr H. Terry. ; a prominent figure in Melbourne fighting ■circles, recently said : —“ There seems to "be some fate attached to the title (Champion of New Zealand). Dick Matthews ' won it hard and kept it often, and he, -after being beaten by Laing, was poor and ‘ balmy’ for some years. Then he journeyed in the only way he could Safford, by., collier, to South America, -worked his toilsome way northwards to- ’ wards his native state State of California, and there met a dreadful end. I met by the merest accident, on a lonely ride in -Maoriland, a young fellow who had •lately returned from California, and who, *on finding who I was, told me of Dick’s fate—as to which we had only "heard rumours here and these were discredited. Dick was “tending bar” in a -saloon in a town called Maderia, in Southern California. Two cowboys ■come in ‘ on a scoot,’ and after a while a arose as to whether the drinks were paid for or not. Dick reached under the bar for his Winchester, but the cow--boys, drunk though they were, were -.quickest on the shoot, and they put five ./revolver builets into Matthews before he could straighten up. The middleweight champion, Pettingell, is in goal for ten years here in Sydney for the first robbery he was ever kidded into. He had been -an honest fellow all his previous career. His undisputed successor, Dick Sandall, ithe ex-amateur, died terribly suddenly, and now poor Laing has gone. Laing .did not fall down the sloping end of the as stated by the local press. TThe station, owing to the race crowd, was full of people, and Laing was afraid •-of hurting someone when jumping off the moving train. He consequently jumped short, rolled off the platform between it and the train, and —sat with his back against the platform wall counting the wheels as they went over his magnificent limbs, and crushed them to a pulp of mangled fiesh and bone.”