The Ring.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume IX, Issue 459, 11 May 1899, Page 8

The Ring.

AN OLD TIMER IN TROUBLE. Tom Allen, or.ce a champion pugilist, on February 25, at St. Louis, at 2 a.m. to day shot and instantly killed Tim Coifoy, a stage hands

in a theatre. The affair was in Allen’s bar room. A quarrel between Allen and Confoy was the ause of the murder. Allen also shot his bartender through the hand. Tom Allen was a conspicuous figure in the old days of bare-knuckle prize fights, when every ring encounter meant a riot by the roughest element of the sporting fraternity. He has been but little heard of in the last twenty years, except as a second or adviser to third-rate pugilists. Allen figured as a prize-fighter for fifteen years, and in that time met and beat or was beaten by all the noted pugilists between he years 1861 and 1876. He won notoriety in England, the place of hie birth, in the ring fights with “Posh” Price, Joe Goss, Bob Smith, the Liverpool black, and Waggoner. In 1867 he came to America, and, taking naturally to the turbulent methods of the prize ring of America at that time, was prominent in many of the lawless deeds of the short-haired fraternity. Allen himself held a pistol on the referee of a fight between Tommy Kelly and Bill Parkinson, of Acqual Creek, Vt, in 1868, threatening him, unless he decided for Kelly, while Kelly’s friends broke into the ring and took the boxer out, a general fight following. Allen’s most famous battles in America were with Jem Mace, near New Oi leans, in 1870, Mace winning; with Joe Goes, in 1876, for the championship of America, Goss winning on a foul. The latter fight took place in two rings, the first in Kent and the second in Bonne County, interference by officers of the law compelling the

change. Goss and Allen both became fugitives from Kentucky justice. Allen was arrested, and served a term in the Frankfort penitentiary. Another of Allen’s noted fights was with Mike M'Cool, on Foster’s Island, in the Mississippi River, near St. Louis, July 15, 1869. M'Cool was beaten into insensibility in nine rounds, but his backers broke into t* e ring with clubs and pistols and prevented a decision. Allen is 59 years of age. News from t. i ouis on February 28, is to the affect that Tom Allen, who shot and killed John Confoy in the former’s saloon last week, was acquitted by the coroner s jury recently. Allen’s plea was self defence. Corbett and Maher are reported to have made a match to fight somewhere in Connecticut. If Corbett and Maher fight on the level, it is probable that the Irishman will have a big following, for the reason that Corbett is generally regarded as a back number. Maher is fully as clever as Sharkey, and a more powerful hitter. His height and reach would make it easier perhaps to reach the ex-champion than Sharkey found it, and in that event Peter might accomplish a decisive knock-out, provided the bout was arranged to go twenty rounds. Those who kno-v Corbetts ability at present say that he cannot last that length and be strong. They believe that in a sixround bouf : however, the ex-champion can hold hjs own with anyone in the heavy-weight