BOXING.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume VIII, Issue 412, 16 June 1898, Page 6

BOXING.

It was owing to his connection with cricket

that Tom Faulkner came to turn his attention to the P.R., states the London Licensed Victuallers' Gazette. The early records of his fighting career mention him as the opponent on two occasions of the celebrated George Taylor, conqueror of Slack, the Norwich champion. A few years afterwards Taylor, who had taken an inn at Deptford, on prize-fighting being declared illegal, encountered Faulkner at a cricket match in White Conduit (Fields, where a select coterie of noblemen and gentlemen had juet at the time established a new club which was destined to be the forerunner of the world-renowned M.C.C. “Chipping ” between the old opponents led to their being matched for the third time. The fight came off near St. Albans, August sth, 1758, and after an hour and a quarter’s desperate slogging, Faulkner won; Cricket and pugilism has not much in common at the end of the nineteenth century, but it is only a few weeks ago that a couple of the Australian team broke the tedium of a long railway journey by a burlesque “fight with the raw ’uns” outside one of the stations en route. “ Scrutineer ” tells a funny story about Peter Maher, the Irish fighter, his latest budget from the States. The story is given on the authority of Dave Holland, who was his “angel” some ] time ago, but quit after the incident related. I “We were in the ring,” says Holland, “add

Peter sat there looking Goddard over. Suddenly he said to me, / That fellow is two stone heavier’n me, begorra.’ I told him that it made no/r. difference, but Peter kept looking, and a moment Slater he said,-* That fellow is five stone heavier’n 1 me, Dave.’ Then I told the referee and time- ■ keeper to hurry up and start things, because if ; there was any more delay Peter might think ' Goddard was ten stone heavier’n him, and.climb . ? out of the ring. As it was, he quit when Goddard landed a good wallop on the jaw.” 1 ’ § “ Pedlar ” Palmer, the clever English fighter, who recently announced his determination to permanently retire from the roped arena, hm , altered his mind, and announces through the \ London sporting press that hie hands have so greatly improved that he stands ready to accom- ,'j mod ate any man in the world at 1161 b, for from £5OO to £lOOO a side, and for the beat purse that the National Sportir g Club, of Londn-n; e * give. < A London sporting paper has been comparing the English sport of boxing and the Spanish : sport of bull-fightirig. On the subject, nf bullfighting a correspondent has written:—“Then the tragedy commences —a tragedy calling forth agility, skill, daring, patient suffering, brutal cruelty, unflinching courage, wild enthusiasm. i But alas, pity is unknown. The poor miserable horses, faithful servitors of man, meet the ferocious onslaught of the bull with a patience which . is heartrending ; their bloody entrails cover the. sand; they fall and rise again, -bearing their brutal rider? until the last breath has left them, • without calling forth the slightest sign of pity from the Spanish throng.’ Pretty sport, isn’t it ?—for the horses, we mean. And yet this isM the infamous cruelty which a Spanish lady thought herself justified in comparing with an 7 English glove contest. ''Twl The National Sporting Club of 'London playe 1 •; it low down on its patrons sometimes. A late ' English file announces that on May 23 a boxing match, under the auspices of the club, would ' . come off between Harry Webster and Jack Cullen, 7 “ Champion of Australia.” We would like ta> - know where he gained the title.