BLACK RACE OF BOXERS DYING OUT.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Issue 1245, 26 February 1914, Page 28

BLACK RACE OF BOXERS DYING OUT.

JOHNSON NOT WANTED IN PARIS CHAMPION’S INDIFFERENT SHOWING. Fistic followers in France have none but themselves to blame for the turn pugilistic affairs have taken to Paris. They were warned that the thing wlas impending, yet they went

ahead and tempted fate, the fruits of which were forced down their throats in abundance twice in less than a week.

Negro boxers have been chased out of America, dispelled in Australia and forced to remain inactive in England. But in face of it all, France threw open its doors, welcomed the black and apparenty gloried in their presence. Now wails of anguish emanate from gay Paree because Jack Johnson failed miserably in an effort to dispose of the fourth-rater, Jim Johnson, and the rottenness of the Langford-Jeannette encore. It appears that the exits for ebonyhued fighters is clear and that the doors to oblivion 'are yawning to receive them. England won’t have them, America doesn’t want them, and Australia refuses to tolerate them, so that all that is necessary to effectively put the screws on is action on the part of France’s boxing commission to prohibit that crowd from further participation in bouts in the country. The time is near when the Eith : - opian race —pugilisticially speakingwill become extinct. The black fighter is dying out. There remain three of any atecount now, but they are rapidly approaching the stage of all fighters’ careers when they must quit. Sentiments are so strong against the black that rarely is one developed. A boy of the colour may display wonderful ability but can’t get encouragement, and, finding attempts to start useless, gives it up. ,

Time has wrought great changes in pugilism. It wasn’t a great many years ago when the black fighter was a magnate at box offices and among them were some of the greatest mas ters of boxing the world produced. There was Peter Jackson, Joe Wolcott, Joe Gans, George Dixon, Jerry Marshall, Jack Blackburn, Dave Holly, Bobby Dobbs, Larry Temple, “ Kentucky Rosebud,” and scores of others, Three of them held world’s championships—George Dixon, Joe Gans, and Joe Wolcott —while Peter Jackson was acknowledged to be the premtor fist’c exponent ever sent out of the Antipodes, not barring Bob. Fitzsimmons. They were drawing cards, every one of them, and either died or retired respected, despite their colour.

Boxers of the Ethiopian race might have continued in the l public’s esteem hid there not come a dark cloud over their lives in the person of Jack John son, disgraced in his private and professional life. ,