The BARE-Knuckle PUGILISTS

[McGoorty]

11. Hyer, strong on his pins, respiring regulary, and evidently in posses-
sion of all his strength. He waited for Sullivan as before, and though Yan-
kee came up rather slower than before, Hyer was content to wait his ap-
proach rather than alter a method by which he was getting on so well. On
meeting at the scratch, a few rapid hits were made, which ended in a clinch
and a wrestle to the ground, Hyer uppermost as before, but with Sullivan's
leg locked over his until he was taken off.
_ 12. This time both men came up quick, and Sullivan led off hitting wildly
and madly right and left, while his cool antagonist, watching his chance,
took a short hit for the privilege of countering on the old spot. Sullivan,
then rallying his energies, tried the Secor dodge, and endeavored to slip
under Hyer with the left, on top of the head, with a round blow, which dis-
charged him to the ground.
_ 13. Up to this time all the fighting was done in Sullivan's corner, making
Hyer's boast good that he should not have an inch more than twelve feet to
do his fighting in. This round commenced by sharp exchanges right and left,
as if they had come together for the first time. At length Hyer, finding it
was all his own way, rallied Sullivan sharply, and driving him to the ropes,
backed him over them, and entered into a smart exchange of fibbing. Hyer
caught hold of the ropes while thus engaged, when a man from Boston, by
the name of Hennessey, seized his thumb, and bent it backwards from its
hold, whereupon Hyer let go, and clinching Sullivan, wrenched him to the
ground, and fell upon him.
_ 14. Sullivan giving out fast; Hyer, perceiving it, entered briskly on the
offensive, fought him to the ropes, and fibbed him on them as before. After
an exchange of this kind of work, Hyer jerked him from the ropes, and
clinching, wrestled him to the ground, and fell upon him.
_ 15. Sullivan shaky on his pins, and Hyer apparently as strong as ever. As
Sullivan came up and attempted to hit out, he slipped; Hyer rallied him to
the ropes, hitting him right and left in the pursuit, and bending him again
over the ropes. During this struggle he caught his arm, and bending it
backward in its socket, gave it a wrench that must have caused the most
agonizing pain; he then clinched and threw him to the ground, and fell up-
on him as before.
_ 16. When time was called, Sullivan was slow in rising from his second's
knee, and it was evident that his fighting star had set, for the day at least.
He walked in a limpsey manner towards the score, but when he put up his
left arm the tremor which shook it showed that it was distressed by pain.
Hyer did not wait for him, but advancing beyond the score, let fly both
right and left in Sullivan's face, who, though he could not return it, took it
without wincing in the least. Hyer then rushed him to the ropes again,
and after a short struggle there, threw him and fell heavily upon him, in
which position Sullivan locked his leg over him again, as if he would hold
him in his place. When he was taken off, Sullivan was found to be entirely
exhausted, and when lifted up reeled half around and staggered backward
towards the ropes. The fight was done. He could not come in again, and
one of his seconds took him from the ring, without waiting for time to be
called. Hyer's second, as soon as this took place, advanced to take Sullivan's
colors as their trophy, but being interfered with and denied by Ling, Hyer
rushed forward himself, and seizing Ling by the arm, enabled his friend to
take the prize. The shouts then went up for the victor, and the party
commenced unthreading the stakes of their halyards, for the voyage back.
_ Thus ended a contest which had excited more interest than any other
pugilistic encounter that ever took place in this country; but which,
though it engaged thousands of minds for a period of six long months,
was done up, when once begun, in seventeen minutes and eighteen seconds.
_ The boat soon got up sail after the battle was over, and made for Pool
Island again on their return. On arriving at that place they found the
steamer Boston still aground, and as her warlike freight came crowding to
the side, the pungees gave them three times three as a compensation for
the disappointment they had received, in neither arresting the principals,
nor getting a peep at the fight.

[McGoorty]

REMARKS
_ The foregoing contest may be aptly termed a "hurricane fight." From
the commencement to the close it was bitter, unremitting, and determined.
On the part of Sullivan it consisted of a series of quick and almost super-
human efforts to outfight and stun his antagonist from the start, while
Hyer, who seemed to be thoroughly aware of his intent, contented himself
with standing at the scratch and forbidding any entrance to his side, by the
tremendous counter hits which he delivered in return for Sullivan's rapid
visitations. He did not attempt to make parrying a leading feature of his
policy, but for the greater portion of the time cheerfully met Sullivan's
blows for a chance at countering back. He had evidently settled upon
this as his policy for the fight, judging correctly, that if hit and hit was to
be the order of the day, the weakest structure must go to pieces in the
struggle. In addition to this, Hyer showed excellent skill in fighting, and
his method of hitting short with the left, as a preliminary to the Paixhan
discharge of the right, in the style of a half upper cut, could not have been
excelled in the use which he made of it, by the best hitters who have ever
shown themselves in the prize ring. To help him still farther, he was cool
and self-possessed, with the exception of a moment or two at the opening of
the fourth round, when he seemed either shaken by his fall, or stung from his
control by the cheers which greeted Sullivan for the handsome blow. Sulli-
van on the other hand fought wild and eager. He did not display that
shrewdness and care which has characterized all his previous fights, but
seemed to consider himself in the ring, not so much to decide some three
hundred thousand dollars, as to revenge upon Hyer, in the bitterest and
most sudden manner, the personal hatred that stood between them. He
hurried to the scratch at every round, and commenced leading off right and
left, and when obliged to take it more severely than he bargained for, in-
variably rushed in for a clinch, notwithstanding each succeeding round
proved more conclusively than those which had gone before, he could not
throw his man, and that these reverses invariably brought upon him the
severest punishment of all. He was twisted to the ground invariably by
the superior strength of his antagonist, and what in view of this, was sur-
prising to his friends, he would resist strongly every time, instead of slip-
ping down as easily as possible to save his strength. As to Hyer's lying on
him to the extent he did, there has been much dispute, and while one party
claims it to have been a "foul," the other insists that it was a pardonable
advantage. Between these two opinions the referee decided "fair." He
decided so properly. There is no rule in "Fistiana" which prescribes the
length of time which a man may be allowed to lie upon another between
the rounds, but the common law of the ring gives to each side the posses
sion of their man the instant the round has ended. Sullivan was therefore,
the property of his seconds the instant he touched the ground, and they
were entitled to him, though obliged to throw twenty men from his body
to get at him. It was natural for Hyer's seconds to let him lie when he
had the advantage, but it was the duty of Sullivan's seconds to insist upon
their rights, and to acquaint the other side, that, if they did not take their
man off in time, they would throw him off. This they had a right to do,
and the results of their not having done it, was, that while Hyer, after the
struggle and throw, would repose at ease on Sullivan's body and draw
resprirations of fresh atmosphere, Sullivan was crushed with the incumbent
weight, and capable of catching only a few muffled breaths.
_ There never was, perhaps, a battle in which there was so much fighting
is so short a space of time; none, certainly, in which more resolute punish-
ment was given and taken, without flinching on either side. The history
of the fight consists in the fact that Sullivan was over-matched; and, in
the further fact that Hyer showed himself capable of matching any man of
his size and weight, doubtless, who exists in Britian or the United States. ---------SPECIAL NOTICE
THE
GREAT FIGHT
BETWEEN
TOM SAYERS AND HEENAN, FOR THE
CHAMPIONSHIP OF THE WORLD
_ A SPECIAL EDITION OF WILKES SPIRIT OF THE TIMES will be published
on the arrival of Mr. Wilkes' account of the Fight, containing a full and
exclusive account of the great international encounter.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ _ 100,000 COPIES
_ Will be ready for Delivery within Six Hours after the arrival of the steamer
bringing the news. Agents will please order early to insure a supply.
_ N.B. - our Extra will contain the histories of the men, and the splendid
likenesses of each which have appeared in our paper.

[McGoorty]

http://www.boxinggyms.com/news/wilke...llivan1860.htm

[McGoorty]

NEW YORK DAILY TRIBUNE
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 1882
JOHN L. SULLIVAN vs PATRICK RYAN




THE SULLIVAN-RYAN PRIZE FIGHT.
SULLIVAN WINS WITHOUT A SCRATCH.
RYAN SEVERELY PUNISHED AT MISSISSIPPI CITY,
MISS. - OVER 2,000 PEOPLE IN ATTENDANCE ON
THE BRUTAL EXHIBITION - NO INTERFERENCE
BY THE AUTHORITIES.
_ MISSISSIPPI CITY, Miss., Feb. 7. - Long
before daylight this morning the Mobile Rail-
road station was thronged with "sporting men"
and newspaper reporters who had come here
to witness the prize fight between Patrick Ryan,
of Troy, N.Y., and John L. Sullivan, of Boston.
Between 10 and 11 o'clock a.m. excursion trains
brought large crowds from New Orleans, and the
grounds about Barnes's Hotel were soon filled with
about 2,000 people. The sheriff had business in
Biloxi, which kept him away until the fight was over.
There was no indications that the authorities thought
of interfering. If they had sought to prevent the fight,
it is not likely that they would have been successful,
for the people here were in favor of a "fair and free
fight." The pugilists, who did most of their training
in New Orleans and on the line of the Mobile Rail-
road did not arrive until this morning. Sullivan came
at 10:30 o;clock and took a room opposite Ryan,
within 100 feet of the ring. The ropes and stakes
arrived at 11 o'clock. The ring was immediately
pitched in front of the hotel, under a grove of live
oaks. There the large crowds of people waited until
all the preliminary arrangements were completed,
passing their time in making bets.
_ A few minutes before 12 o'clock Sullivan cast
his cap into the ring, and soon after Ryan entered
the ring, accompanied by "Tom" Kelly and "Johnny"
Roach. Ryan won the choice of corners and took the
southwest corner. Sullivan took the opposite corner
with the sun in his face. After some cousultation,
James D. Houston, of New Orleans, was chosen
referee. He declined, and at 12:30 Charles Bush
was chosen. He also refused. Soon after the matter
was settled by the choice of Alexander Brewster, of
New Orleans, and "Jack" Hardy, of Vicksburg. All
the arrangements having been made, the two pugilists
entered the ring and shook hands. The incidents of the
fight are given below:
_ First Round - Both men sparred cautiously for an
opening. Ryan led with his right, but fell short and
caught in return a "hot one" from Sullivan's left
hand on the face. Exchanges then became short
and quick, and Sullivan finally knocked Ryan
down with a severe right-hander on the cheek.
Time, 30 seconds.
_ Second Round - Sullivan at once rushed toward
Ryan and gave him a blow on the jaw with his left
hand. Ryan closed with him, and they wrestled for
a fall, Ryan winning and falling heavily on his
opponent. Time, 25 seconds.
_ Third Round - The men came together with
a rush, and Sullivan, after making three
passes, knocked Ryan down with a terrible
right-hand blow on the chest. Time, 4 seconds.
_ Fourth Round - The men sparred, for a second
or two, and then Sullivan gave Ryan a stinging
blow on his nose before the closed. "Slugging"
then began and continued until Ryan was forced
upon the ropes, when he went to the grass.
Time, 20 seconds.
_ Fifth Round - This was a repetition of the
previous round, both men closing and putting
in their "best licks." The attack of both men
was confined to the face. Ryan succeeded in
bringing Sullivan to his knees at the close of
the round.
_ Sixth Round - Sullivan came up smiling, but
it was evident that Ryan was not only suffer-
ing, but was somewhat afraid of his antago-
nist. Sullivan lost no time, but Ryan closed
and threw him.
_ Seventh Round - This round was a short one.
The men closed and hitting was continued for
a few seconds, when Ryan went to the grass
a wreck. Sullivan came to his corner smiling.
Ryan, however, had the grit to come up for
another round.
_ Eighth Round - When time was called the
men came up promptly. Ryan was decidedly
weak, but he made a gallant struggle. Sulli-
van fought him over the ring into the um-
pire's corner and over the ropes. Upon getting
off the ropes Ryan rallied, but went down on
one hand and one knee. A foul was looked
for, but, though Sullivan had his hand raised
to strike, he restrained himself as Ryan rose.
Both men were retiring to their corners when
the seconds of each cried "Go for him," and
the men again came together. They closed and
then clinched, and after a short struggle both
went down.
_ Ninth Round - Ryan failed to come to time
and the fight was declared in favor of Sullivan.
_ Ryan and Sullivan were visited after they had
gone to their quarters. Ryan was lying in an
exhausted condition on his bed, badly disfigured
about the face, his upper lip being cut through
and his nose disfigured. He did not move but lay
panting. Stimulants were given him. He is terribly
punished on the head.
_ At the conclusion of the fight Sullivan ran laugh-
ing to his quarters at a lively gait. He lay down
awhile as he was a little out of wind, but there is
not a scratch on him. He chatted pleasantly with
his friends.
_ The fight was short, sharp, and decisive on Sul-
livan's part throughout, Ryan showing weariness
after the first round.

[McGoorty]

September 30, 1974
'run, Sullivan! Run!'
Tom Hyer and Yankee Sullivan led 110 cops on a merry chase through Chesapeake Bay before battling for the American heavyweight title
George A. Gipe. -------From SPORTS ILLUSTRATED.Those who complain that the fight game has grown dull and predictable might well consider making the sport illegal once again. For before boxing gained official recognition and eventually degenerated into a fuzzy dream sequence of Friday nights at tubeside, there was always the delicious possibility that the prefight cat-and-mouse game between entrepreneur and police captain would be more entertaining than the fight itself.

Take as an example America's heavyweight championship battle of Feb. 7, 1849. The combatants on that day were Tom Hyer, who was generally recognized as champ after having beaten Country McClusky at Caldwell's Landing on the Hudson eight years before, and Yankee Sullivan, who weighed in at only 155 but was undefeated after a tour that had taken him halfway around the world. But the battle between the fight promoters and the police was much more exciting.

The ballyhoo started months before, when Sullivan, infuriated by the suggestion that he was afraid of Hyer, stormed into a New York saloon one night and challenged the champion then and there. Hyer responded by pounding Sullivan into submission within three minutes, an act of commercial naivete which could have ruined the real fight but somehow did not. It helped, of course, when a boxing cohort of Hyer's was murdered. And the police promptly lost Round One of the three-way contest by being unable to locate the killer.

Having bested the New York authorities on this count, the fight promoters decided to cash in their chips by holding the battle in Maryland where a deserted piece of real estate named Pool's (now Pooles) Island offered a sanctuary in the middle of Chesapeake Bay. Maryland officials responded with the warning that the "disgusting exhibition" would be prevented. To back up their words they activated two companies of officers, the Independent Blues and Independent Greys, armed them and chartered the steamer Boston as the state's assault craft.

Stimulated rather than deterred by the police activity, fight fans, gamblers and other amateur and professional patrons of the art began pouring into Baltimore during the week before the fight. On Feb. 6 Hyer arrived at Carroll's Island, just south of the city, while the Sullivan group settled into one of the two buildings on Pool's Island. A crew of workmen began clearing an area within which the fight would take place. Simultaneously the steamship Cumberland left Philadelphia with about 100 fans, and two schooners carrying 40 fans each left Baltimore.

Just before midnight—the Boston, loaded with about 110 officers and towing a scow for the transporting of prisoners, pulled out of Baltimore harbor. Two hours later the expedition arrived at Carroll's Island and the men eagerly swarmed ashore to see who could be the first to lay official hands on Hyer.

To their dismay Carroll's Island was deserted. Forewarned, the Hyer party had left for Pool's Island at 6 p.m. Even more annoying was the fact that the scow had swamped and several boats which had been placed on board her were adrift about a mile astern. Another hour was lost recovering the boats.

In the meantime, Hyer and his friends had arrived at Pool's Island and gone to sleep in the second building. A careful watch was maintained to prevent their being surrounded, for the police outnumbered the fighters' parties by 10 to one.

Weather and police incompetence improved the odds considerably. By the time Captain Gifford's men arrived at Pool's Island the scow was barely afloat and the bay was so rough that only 10 men were able to reach land after struggling at the oars of the small boats for half an hour. Tired and discouraged, the landing force trundled up to the buildings with a maximum of noise and assaulted frontally.

Neither fighter's party was even remotely surprised. At the first sound of tramping feet Hyer had crept downstairs and hidden himself on the first floor of the building. When the police charged into the house, they went right by him and upstairs to the bedroom where Hyer's trainer, George Thompson, was sleeping. Assuming him to be the champion, they placed him under arrest while Hyer slipped out a ground-floor window and into a small boat.The operation against Yankee Sullivan was even more inept. Barging into the second building, the police found themselves facing Sullivan and Tom O'Donnell, his sparring partner, without the faintest idea who was who. After a moment of shock, Sullivan suddenly put his hand on O'Donnell's shoulder, shoved and yelled, "Run, Sullivan! Run like hell!"

O'Donnell ran and, incredibly, every last one of the police officers took off in hot pursuit. Sullivan calmly strolled out of the building and waded to a nearby schooner.

It was not until an hour later that the police discovered they had made a couple of significant errors. In the meantime the two schooners and the steamer Cumberland had scattered. The question was on which vessel were the real pugilists? Predictably, the police decided they must be on the Cumberland and headed south after her. Under a heavy press of steam, they overhauled her near Baltimore, brought her to and thoroughly searched the ship for the fighters. Of course they were not aboard. Reboarding the Boston, Captain Gifford sailed back in the direction of the schooners, but just as the Boston reached a point nearly abreast of the Pool's Island lighthouse, it ran aground on a sandbar. And there it remained until evening when another police boat was sent to the rescue.

One Baltimore newspaper tried to salvage a modicum of state pride from the announcement that the fight was to be transferred to Dover, Del. " Maryland," it wrote, had "prevented her soil from being desecrated by so foul and brutal an exhibition." But it hadn't.

Pulling ashore at Maryland's Kent County on the eastern side of the bay, the fighters performed before a meager audience. Hyer won in the 16th round, earning a $10,000 purse; Sullivan suffered a "slightly fractured skull." By all accounts, it was an anticlimax.

[McGoorty]

April 02, 1973
The Brawls At Boston Corners
Arthur Myers................................ SPORTS ILLUSTRATED///Prizefights have changed a lot of things over the years: the amount of money in people's pockets, the shape of a man's nose, opinions once held to be unshakable, the course of many men's lives. But only once to my knowledge has a prizefight changed the map of the United States. That was the fight between John Morrissey and the man they called Yankee Sullivan, and as a result of it Massachusetts lost an entire town to the State of New York.

If you'll take a look at the map today, you'll see that there is a small chunk sliced away from the southwest corner of Massachusetts. That missing slice is Boston Corners. And what a place it was in the mid-1800s!

Boston Corners was a rough neighborhood because there was no law there, or at least none that was enforced, for when the map makers drew up the state lines, they favored neatness over the topographical realities. The neatest way to separate New York and Massachusetts was simply to extend the New York-Vermont line south. This tidy arrangement did not take the Taconic Mountains into consideration. They were small mountains, but not easy to get over in those days, and they effectively cut off Boston Corners from Great Barrington, the nearest center of Massachusetts law enforcement. The New York State sheriffs, of course, had no jurisdiction there.

In time things got so bad that the 50 or 60 honest farmers and burghers of Boston Corners petitioned the New York and Massachusetts legislatures to transfer the town to New York, but nobody paid much attention.

And so we come to the fateful year of 1853. Let us momentarily quit Boston Corners and shift our attention 120 miles south to almost equally lawless Gotham and the prize ring.

In those days it was hard to tell exactly who was heavyweight champion—something like these days. The problem then, however, was that prizefights of all kinds were strictly illegal, and this tended to discourage any formal ratings. But most of the leading, or at least most publicized, pretenders to the title of top bopper were concentrated in New York City, where Irish immigrants and their progeny habitually roughed each other up for fun and glory. The best brawlers had their own gangs, and the two most prominent were John Morrissey and Yankee Sullivan.

Morrissey was only 22 but already owned a popular saloon on lower Broadway called the Gem. He was later, via Tammany, to rise to the hallowed halls of Congress. But at this tender age he mainly wanted to be recognized as the world's toughest Irishman.

Standing in the way of that ambition was Sullivan, a man who at 40 was almost old enough to be Morrissey's father, and who weighed only 150 pounds. But he was a tough cookie who could take on anyone of any size, a sort of Mickey Walker of his day. They called him "Old Smoke," for his deftness at ducking while poking his adversary in the teeth.

During the summer of 1853 the Sullivan and Morrissey gangs staged many a rumble. Hostilities reached a crescendo when, one summer evening, Sullivan strode into the Gem, mounted a table and announced that he both could and would flatten Morrissey for keeps within one hour in a 24-foot ring.

Summoned to the scene, Morrissey came swooping in and implied that on the worst day he ever lived he could murder this bum. Rivalry was at such fever pitch that the boys might well have started slugging it out then and there if cooler heads had not prevailed to save the physical confrontation for commerce.Articles were signed to fight for a purse of $2,000 on Oct. 5, within 100 miles or thereabouts of New York City. The fight seemed sure to draw thousands, but how to keep the enterprise from being busted—that was the problem. Someone thought of Boston Corners, and the wheels of history went into a slow grind.

The Harlem Railroad had just been built, and the sports began inundating Boston Corners via rail the day before the fight. The fighters waited until the last minute. One never knew; the law boys might make it over the hills from Great Barrington after all.

A ring had been set up on the drying ground of an old brickyard, and hours before the scheduled fight, the spectators staged dozens of unscheduled ones.

When the fighters got into the ring, Morrissey looked like a giant beside the middle-aged Sullivan. But just as the fight was about to start, Old Smoke got a special shot of encouragement. His wife jumped up at ringside and yelled that she had $1,000 that said her man would draw first blood. The bet was covered, and the gong sounded.

Sullivan immediately penetrated the burly Morrissey's defense and opened a gash over his right eye, and Mrs. Sullivan collected early. Morrissey had a magnificent build but a rather serious handicap for a fighter: he was blind in his left eye. Sullivan worked diligently on the gash, and the blood kept running down into Morrissey's good eye.

In those days, a knockdown ended the round, and the rounds sped by quickly as one or the other of the fighters hit the deck. The fight became more and more bloody and bitter as it ground on past the 15th, 20th, 30th rounds.

Each time one of the fighters got in a good blow it would set off a chain reaction in the crowd as their followers started sympathetic fights of their own. This extracurricular activity proved the decisive factor in the fight going on in the ring.

In the 37th round Sullivan glanced at the crowd just in time to see a close friend take a good one on the chops. Enraged, he stormed from the ring to avenge his buddy, and in a flash the whole crowd was a snarling, brawling mass. Morrissey stood alone in the center of the ring, and after some minutes of indecision, the referee raised his hand in victory. Unfortunately, however, the Massachusetts lawmen had made it over the mountains after all, and as soon as the fight ended they collared the champ and tossed him into the clink in Lenox. Prosecuted by District Attorney Henry L. Dawes of Pittsfield, he was fined $1,200 a few days later.

All in all, the boys made an indelible impression on Boston Corners, in more ways than one. The fight, publicized by newspapers all over the country, finally convinced the New York and Massachusetts legislatures that something had to be done, and a few months afterward Boston Corners was ceded to New York. Things have been pretty quiet there ever since.

[McGoorty]

Boxing Quotes by MARK TWAIN.

BOXING

On Saturday, December 30, 1893, Mark Twain, along with Henry H. Rogers and others, attended boxing matches at the New York Athletic Club. They saw Frank Craig, the Harlem "Coffee Cooler," defeat "the white man" Joe Ellingsworth. Twain wrote to his wife Livy:
Mr. Archbold of the Standard Oil got tickets for us & he & Mr. Rogers & Dr. Rice & I went to the Athletic Club last Saturday night & saw the Coffee Cooler dress off another prize fighter in great style. There were 10 rounds; but at the end of the fifth the Coffee Cooler knocked the white man down & he couldn't get up any more. A round consists of only 3 minutes; then the men retire to their corners and sit down and lean their heads back against a post and gasp and pant like fishes, while one man fans them with a fan, another with a table-cloth, another rubs their legs and sponges off their faces and shoulders and blows sprays of water in their faces from his own mouth. Only one minute is allowed for this; then time is called and they jump up and go to fighting again. It is absorbingly interesting.
- Letter to Olivia Clemens, January 4, 1894, reprinted in The Love Letters of Mark Twain, (Harper & Bros., 1949), p. 287.

[McGoorty]

MARK TWAIN continued....

On Saturday, January 27, 1894, Mark Twain, along with Henry H. Rogers and architect Standford White, attended the boxes matches at Madison Square Garden. Stanford White introduced Mark Twain to boxer James J. Corbett in Corbett's dressing room. Twain wrote Livy:


Photo from Library of Congress Prints and Photorgraphs Division.
By 8 o’clock we were down again and bought a fifteen-dollar box in the Madison Square Garden (Rogers bought it, not I,) then he went and fetched Dr. Rice while I (went) to the Players and picked up two artists -- Reid and Simmons -- and thus we filled 5 of the 6 seats. There was a vast multitude of people in the brilliant place. Stanford White came along presently and invited me to go to the World-Champion’s dressing room, which I was very glad to do. Corbett has a fine face and is modest and diffident, besides being the most perfectly and beautifully constructed human animal in the world. I said:

“You have whipped Mitchell, and maybe you will whip Jackson in June -- but you are not done, then. You will have to tackle me.”

He answered, so gravely that one might easily have thought him in earnest:

“No -- I am not going to meet you in the ring. It is not fair or right to require it. You might chance to knock me out, by no merit of your own, but by a purely accidental blow; and then my reputation would be gone and you would have a double one. You have got fame enough and you ought not to want to take mine away from me.”

Corbett was for a long time a clerk in the Nevada Bank in San Francisco.

There were lots of little boxing matches, to entertain the crowd: then at last Corbett appeared in the ring and the 8,000 people present went mad with enthusiasm. My two artists went mad about his form. They said they had never seen anything that came reasonably near equaling its perfection except Greek statues, and they didn’t surpass it.

Corbett boxed 3 rounds with the middle-weight Australian champion -- oh, beautiful to see! -- then the show was over and we struggled out through a perfect wash of humanity
- Letter to Olivia Clemens, January 28, 1894, reprinted in Mark Twain's Letters, Vol. II, edited by Albert Bigelow Paine, p. 603-604.

[McGoorty]

CHICAGO DAILY INTER OCEAN, January 20, 1888, p. 5

TWAIN IN THE RING.
Adventures of the Humorist Among the Old Timed Athletes of San Francisco.
Efforts of the Author of "Roughing It" to Become a Great Boxer.
Mark Agreed to Fight, but He Wanted Two Rings for Safety.
_____

ATHLETIC EXPLOITS.

San Francisco Chronicle: Mark Twain has not lacked celebrity in his time. His life and adventures have been industriously written, both by himself, and others. Everyone knows about his exploits as a newspaper reporter, and his experiences as a river pilot; but the fact has hitherto been lost to the world that at one time he had aspirations to be a boxer.

The secret leaked out the other day in a bathing establishment at North Beach, where half a dozen well-known and venerable pioneers were gathered to celebrate the Christmas week by a plunge in the uninviting waters of the bay. A cheerful Turkish bath would, perhaps, have been more beneficial to these veterans of the spring of '49, but to evade their accustomed plunge in the chilly bay would be an acknowledgment that old age was beginning to cool their blood. This to the average pioneer is the most depressing confession that can be extracted, and so the six gray-haired and rheumatic old relics of another age sat and shivered in the bath-house after their plunge. The timely discovery of a bottle of old bourbon in one of the lockers helped to restore their circulation. As the bottle went round the tongues of the pioneers commenced to wag of the events of a quarter of a century ago. One of the pioneers suggested a bout with the boxing gloves to more thoroughly remove the effects of their aquatic indiscretion.

"Oh, there's no use in your boxing," said another old veteran. "What do you want boxing? Why, you were never able to

LICK EVEN MARK TWAIN"

This reference brought up the humorist's exploits as a would-be athlete, and the pioneers talked over them as long as the bottle held out.

"I never saw a man who was of such little account as a boxer as Mark Twain," said one pioneer who seemed to have been more familiar with the great humorist's aspirations than anyone else.

When Twain was working on the newspapers as a reporter, continued the pioneer, the Olympic Club had a set of very lively boxers. Boxing was all the rage then. Several men that have since become bankers, eminent lawyers, and railroad magnates used to put on the gloves in the old club room and keep things lively.

Twain was very ambitious to become an athlete. After he had been robbed by footpads on the Divide, outside ******ia City, an experience he has described in "Roughing It" he made up his mind to practice boxing. He thought, I guess, that if he could have used his fists to good effect he would not have had such an unpleasant experience. Any how he resolved to become an athlete, and confided his aspirations to John McComb, now the Warden of San Quentin Penitentiary. John was not a General of militia at that time, and having less dignity to carry than now was very handy with his fists. Twain, who was totally devoid of athletic qualities, looked on McComb as a sort of John L. Sullivan, or rather Tom Hyer, for the latter was the pugilistic wonder of those days.

McComb advised Twain to improve his muscles by wrestling, and the two of them spent a good many evenings in that way. The pewter pots and glasses they wrestled with, however, were too much for

THE RISING HUMORIST,

and while the future General grew rosy and rotund on the exercise, Twain kept getting more spider-like every day. McComb did not want to let him change his exercise, as Twain's droll talk when he was three sheets in the wind was very amusing; but finally Mark rebelled and announced that he would try another physical adviser.

Some one advised him to go to Frank Wheeler, well known then as a general athlete and professor of the manly art. Frank was accustomed to teaching sluggers, and his energetic instruction had such a depressing effect on Twain's jaw that he abstained from beefsteak for a month after his first lesson

He next tried Bill Clarke, also a noted boxer, and here he met with more success for a while. One evil day, however, he was induced to have a bout with John Lewis, the ex-Supervisor. Lewis was noted among the amateurs as the owner of a very ugly right hand that had a knack of catching them, with the force of a trip-hammer, under the ear when they least expected it. Lewis was somewhat sensitive of his athletic reputation, and if he thought any man was setting-to with him to test his ability, he generally let him have the best that he was able to give. Poor Mark was in a quest only of innocent practice, but Denis McCarthy, a popular and able journalist, who liked to have a joke at Twain's expense, informed Lewis that he had better look out for his opponent.

"He's knocked out a couple of light-weights on the Comstock," said the jocose editor, "and he's just trying himself against a California heavy-weight, so don't let him make any reputation on you, or he'll go back and blow about it all through Nevada."

"He will, eh!" remarked the heavy-weight, and he went into the dressing-room with a formidable frown to prepare for the set-to.

Twain came out with a loose and thick woolen shirt, which concealed his muscular deficiencies and gave him an unusually burly aspect. Notwithstanding this fact, the amateur slugger was by no means impressed with the humorist's appearance, and gave him what he thought

A LIGHT SLAP

under the ear to test his mettle. The result was disastrous. The aspiring humorist threw a double somersault and, alighting on the back of his neck, lay at full length on the floor.

[McGoorty]

The crowd rushed over, and Lewis, who was the first, picked him up.

"You're not hurt, are you? Why, that was nothing," said the alarmed boxer, soothingly.

The humorist only replied with a groan.

"Shall I send for a doctor for you?" asked Editor McCarthy.

"Send for an undertaker, Denis," gasped the damaged humorist.

"What's the matter with you?" inquired the now alarmed journalist.

"I'll be able to tell you as soon as my neck is set," replied the humorist, picking himself up and dragging himself back to the dressing room.

He remarked to McCarthy when he came out again, with his handkerchief wrapped around his damaged neck.

"If I could hit like that fellow I'd hire myself as a pile-driver on the city front and make $500 a day."

Twain next showed up as a boxer in the Olympic Club, where old Joe Winrow, John Morrissey's and Tom Hyer's ex-trainer, was teaching the manly art. Winrow was a professional pugilist, who had fought one of the longest ring battles on record, but he was very gentle as a teacher, and Twain blossomed out as quite a boxer. Winrow, like the celebrated Bendigo, became a very religious man after he had abandoned active pugilism, and used to read the Bible every morning as regularly as he took his breakfast. Sometimes when teaching, however, the old spirit would rise in the reformed pugilist and he would swing in his right hand with unchristian fervor. Twain had a holy horror of the old pugilist's right, and whenever he observed dangerous enthusiasm in his teacher's eye would shout out:

"Joe, remember the Scriptural instruction. 'Don't let your right hand know what your left is doing?'"

The old man used to laugh, and when the lesson was over would sit down and smoke one of the two-bit cigars that the humorist always brought along to ingratiate himself with his tutor.

THE DESPERATE BATTLE

between Twain and Moore, the bookseller, will long be remembered as one of the sensational events of the old club. Moore was a feather-weight champion and tipped the scales somewhere in the neighborhood of ninety pounds. He was very pugnacious, a quality which Twain did not possess. The humorist, however, had much the best of the match in weight, and, besides, was seconded by that accomplished mentor, Philo Jacoby; Stewart Menzies was referee, and Frank Lawton was timekeeper. As much as $1.50, besides several drinks and cigars, was wagered on the contest. Moore, who meant mischief, wanted an eighteen-foot ring, while Twain wanted the orthodox twenty-four-foot ring.

John McComb suggested, as the best means of settling the dispute, that each man should be allowed the ring that he wanted, and two rings were accordingly chalked out on the floor -- a large one of twenty-four feet and a smaller one inside it of eighteen feet. This ingenious arrangement entailed unexpected trouble, for after the first round Twain insisted on staying in his own corner and having Moore restrained from crossing the eighteen-foot frontier line. He called upon the referee to issue a writ of injunction against his antagonist to keep him inside the eighteen-foot chalkmark, and finally, finding the Supreme Court, as it were, against him, jumped the ring altogether and claimed the match on a breach of contract. The spectators, who rolled on their chairs and benches as the amusing contest proceeded, were more exhausted at the close than the combatants, who never after appeared in any ring.

After his first and last ring fight Twain devoted himself to fencing, which he concluded was a much more pleasant road to athletic excellence than the pugilistic pathway. He practiced assiduously for some time, but he could never master the intricacies of the art, and after William Norris doubled up a foil on his ribs one day with a thrust that would have gone through a pine board had the point been without a protecting button, Twain gave up athletics altogether.

"I've concluded, John," said he to McComb, that it's not healthy to have too much muscle anywhere, even on your tongue, so I've quit."

"He hasn't lost anything by the muscles of his tongue, however, " remarked the pioneer, as he looked wistfully at the now empty bottle, and with the other veterans started up town.