The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, June 18, 1905, Page 3

- S AND \JAS AND HALF FARMER What He Sald to King Edward—Regret of & Boston Patriot He Didn't “Put Out” the British Monarch—Threw Away Crutches to Whip Kilrnin—His Marvelous Constitution—Says He's the Same as Ever, His “Fromt"—Teo a Correspondence School for Dr. Osler. shook his fiip- well. shed him He Majesty's to the ve many to leave Ire- aid 1, “but they elr appetites. ived in Ireland a r famine there, that bition be- 50 1 s pr a £ money’s wortk When He Dida't Punch King Edward. ATt return home to n 1 was " meeting t about St, men feel one nds w who believes that e day B be used as a wsing plac goats, got very much excited. ve mane t widdin arr he aske was, I melia e let t what were all thot 1 of the bloody ation and Yez ought to be 1 been in yer e willin® kim out it place I'd given it til King is that m 2 would rather make frie t he has 10 keep his jok wouldn’t siness as a tried las: ham sandwich a nic. He's only a hired man. Marvelous ere Constitution. and tally the past I can- k of a stand D Talk re. and strenuous liv- the best of them A few year o when I » New York, to the hospital for (G RAFFLES NO. 3 Continued From Page Two the keys night.. Of course I thought he would take them with him to his room; but no such thing; he had a dodge W two of that. What it doesr matter, but no out- we und those keys in a month of A I, of course, had them in a few sec- onds, and in a fow more I was in the strongroom itself. I forgot to say that the moon had risen and was letting quite a lot of light into the bank. I had, how- ever, brought a bit of candle with me from my room, and in the strongroom, which was down some narrow stairs be- Lind the counter in the banking cham- ver, 1 had no hesitation in lighting it. here was no window down there, and ugh 1 could no longer hear old Ew- bank snoring I had not the slightest rea- son to anticipate disturbance from that quarter. I did think of locking myself in while 1 was at work, but, thank goodness, the iron door had no keyhole on the in- slde. ““Well, there were heaps of gold in the safe, but I only took what I needed and could comfortably carry, not much more than a couple of hundred altogether. Not a note would I touch, and my native cau- tion came out also in the way I divided the sovereigns between all. my pockets end packed them up so that I shouldn't be like the old woman of Banbury Cross. Well, you think me too cautious still, but I was insanely cautious then. And so it was that, just as I was ready to go, HE HAD HAND LIKEHBA.?EB LL MITS. HALF IRON VOBKER “ o O mine. The doctorgggot out their dinky little saws and things and began to cut the bad all out of me. They put me down. and while I took their count they found that I had a rup- ture of the bowels, and that I'd had it from birth. I took their word for it. They. had to go back over my record to be convinced that 1'd lived so many vears without complaining. ver made any complaint at being I told them, “although some oth- ers had.” They thought it wonderful that IT'd been able to train and. fight so. long. I told them that in 1888, some time after my three hours’ fight with Mitchell in France, during March of that year a se- vere illness got me and I was in my nighty in bed for nine weeks, suffering with typhold fever, gastric fever, inflam- mation of the bowels, liver complaint and heart trouble—all at the same time. This sounds like some of the things you hear members of Congress and skinny women telling about in patent medicine adver- tisements, but its sure enough truth. whereas I might have been gone ten min- utes, there can:: a violent knocking at the outer door. “Bunny, it was the outer door of the banking chamber! My candle must have been seen! And there I stood, with the grease running hot over my fingers, in that brick grave of a strongroom! “There was only one thing to be done. 1 must trust to the sound sleeping of Ewbank upstairs, open the door myself, knock the visitor down or shoot him with the revolver I had been new chum enough to buy before leaving Mel- bourne, and make a dash for that clump of trees and the doctor’s mare. My mind was made up in an instant, and 1 was at the top of the strong-room stairs, the knocking still continuing, when a second sound drove me back. It was the sound of = bare feet coming along a corridor. “My narrow stair was stone. I tum- bled down it with little noise and had only to push open the iron door, for I had left the keys in the safe. As I did so I heard a handle turn overhead and thanked my gods that I had shut every single door behind me. You see, old chap, one’s caution doesn’t always let one in. ““Who's that knocking? bank up above, “I could not make out the answer, but it sounded to me like the irrelevant supplication of a spent man. What.I did hear plainly was the cocking of the bank revolver before the bolts were said Ew- THE SAN FRANCISCO SUNDAY CALL. When I was turned loose by the doc- tors in the hospital 1 was partly para- Iyzed, my legs being onh strike and refus- ing to work. With the use of crutches I was able to get around to meet the boys and see if the supply of coffin varnish was holding out. It was six weeks be- fure 1 gave the crutches the glad heave. Threw Away His Crutches. It was In the latter part of December, 1588, that I chucked the crutches. Stick a pin in this date and then remember that on July 8, 1889, I fought Jake Kilrain at Richburg, Miss., that battle lasting seventy-five rounds. What do you think of that? And I let that battle go seven- ve rounds on purpose to show that 1 s able to go any distance any living fighter could do. I'll tell you in my next how 1 let Kilrain do all that was In him in that fight, holding off the knockout till everybody was tired of the battle, just to show that T was still the champlon, and the crutches didn’t show in the count. 1 have brought out these facts at this time to show that I can recover from anything to good enough notch to put it over the twenty-round ladybirds who are to-day doing vaudeville stunts and cail- ing it fighting. I have it in me to press the button for the best of them and they can’'t talk down the facts of the past any more than they can duck the dead sure things that I'm futuring for them. o shot back. Then a tottering step, a hard, short, shallow breathing, and Ew- bank’s voice in horror: “+‘My God! Good Lord! What's hap- pened to you? You're bleeding like a pig! . “* ‘Not now,’ came with a grateful sort of sigh. ““But you have been! What's donle it?" * “Bushrangers.” *“‘Down the road? “*This and Whittlesea—tied to a tree—cock shot$—left me—bleed to death’ “The weak voice failed and the bare feet bolted. Now was my time—if the poor devil had fainted. But I could not be sure, and there I crouched down be- low in the dark, at the half-shut iron door, not less spellbound than impris- oned. It was just as well, for Ewbank wasn't gone a minute. “‘Drink this,’ I heard him say, and, when the other spoke again his voice was stronger. “‘Now I begin to feel alive— - “‘Don’t talk.’ *“‘It does me good. You don't know what it was—all those miles alone, one an hour at the cutside. I never thought I should come through. Yoy must let me tell you—in case I don’tS *‘Well. have another sip.’ ‘ “Tharik you. * * * T sald bush- rangers; of course, there are no such thingr nowadays.” ~‘What were they, then? “‘Bank thieves; the one that had the put skots was the wevy brute I drove ) / f/I’ R il /’”'/,’f//"‘ i i T have a “front” that makes my belt wider than it ought to be, but 'm get- ting that reduced every d: My neck is the same size it was in my best day. My arms are the same size and as hard, and my legs tell the same pretty and com- fortable story. He and Lillinn Russell. Since I stored away Jack McCormick at Grand Rapids some time ago all the smart Alecks have been explaining it as an accident. The Texan thinks it was al- most a fatal accident for him. But there was just as much heft in the swipe that made McCormick forget the Alamo as there was in the one that persuaded Joe Goss in 1880 that I was a comer. Here's the reports from the Knockers' Associa- tion: Jeffries—I won't fight John L. because it would be a case of assault and battery on my part. Fitzsimmons—Sullivan is an odious old man, and I haven’t time from my the- atrical engagements. Corbett—(Mostly bad language, and a swift run for shelter.) They are making it appear that T ought to be in some old ladies’ home, and they don’t want to make some money anyway. They are three of a kind, and they are afraid to see my “bluff,” as they call it, with my pair of dukes, Ain't they the limit? Jeffries sald the othersday that out of the bank at Coburg with a bul- let in him! " *I knew it “C? course you did, Bunny; so did I, @ov n in that strongroom; but old Ew- Lank didn’t, and I thought he was never going to speak again. ‘ ‘You're delirious,’ he says at last. “Who in blazes do you think you are?" ~ “ihc new manager.’ “‘The new manager's asleep upstairs!” “*When did he arrive. *‘This evening.’ #‘Calls himself Raffles? ““Yes.' “*‘Well, I'm damned! whispered the real man. ‘I thought it was just re- venge, but now I see what it was, My dear sir, the man upstairs is an im- postor—if he’s upstairs still! He must be one of the gang. He's going to rob the bank—if he hasn't done so al- ready!” ““If he hasn't done so already,’ mut- tered Ewbank after him; ‘if he's up- stairs still! By God, if he is I'm sorry for him?! “His tone was quiet enough, wut about the nastiest I ever heard. I tell you, Bunny, 1 was glad I'd brought that re- volver. It looked as though it must be mine against his muzzle to muzale. * ‘Better have a look down here first,’ said the new manager. : ““While he gets threugh his window? No, no; he’s not down here.’ ‘It's easy to have a look." “Bunrly, if you ask me what was the in bed and SEISREL Y0 GLAD IT I3, jub g ] NU President Roosevelt was good enough boxer to get into the swing with some of the best of them to-day, yet the Presi- dent, good scrapper that he is, and all honor to him for it, is older than I am. Fitz is 43, nearly as old as I am, and he has the gall to put 'em up. Jem Mace at 40 and Joe Goss at 43 did some good work. And John L. is going to butt in to-the Knockers' Association, and he’s going to make the motion to adjourn. They can’t come too fast for me and they can't lose yours truly. Say, this Osler must be a horse doctor when he talks of 40 being the time to dope out. Me and Lillian Rus- sell are going to make him raise his fig- ures or we’'ll send him to some corre- spondence school to learn his lesson over again. Patsy Cardiff had about as hard a head as any sport I ever lambasted. I broke my left forearm on his head in the first round of a meeting we had in Minneapo- lis January 18, 1887. A little thing like that didn’t stop the fight and I finished it, finishing Patsy and getting the deci- sion, along with 75 per cent of the re- ceipts. “I'm sorry ver arrum is broke, Jawn,” said Patsy,” but I'm glad it isn't my nut.” Before daylight my arm had puffed up till it looked like Jumbo's hind leg. The arm was set by some doctors, but it con- tinued to bother me, and two weeks later upon my arrival in little old New York I showed the bum fin to Dr. Sayers. This Dr. Sayers had courage, though you'd never guess it by looking at him. He said the arm was not set right— that where the hand turned down it ought to turn up. Calling in some as- sistants he told them to hold the muscles of the arm, and he, taking hold of the hand as if to shake it, gave it a wrench and broke the arm. Mind you, my good right was free and in working order all this time, but that doctor never turned a hair, although there wasn’'t a heavy-weight fighter in the world that didn’t fear that same right, and he didn’t know what I might do when he snapped the bone. You must remember that I had a record as a rather jmpulsive fellow, even if my folks did think when I was younger that they'd have me enter the priesthood. “You've got sand, doctor,” said I. “There's more money for you in the ring than in sawing bones.” He smiled, set the arm in a plaster cast which ‘T wore for five weeks, and before long the arm was doing business at the old’ stand and has been on duty ever since. How nn Amateur Scrapper Got $500 From John L. In a town near Pittsburg, Pa., I made a one-night stand, offering $500 to any am- bitious gent who would take a chance of staying with me four/rounds. Up comes 2 big youngster welghing over 200 pounds. He had hands like baseball mitts, and ‘was half iron worker and half farmer. “I ken lift 800 pounds, Mr. Sullivan, and once 1 threw Farmer Brown's bull, and when it kem at me agen I knocked it down with this,” sald the candidate for the $500, showing his right fist. He also brought Farmer Brown along to prove the oull part of the story. He didn't bring the bull, but offered to get it. N e s _-LE PREMIER PAS B e N T e s 2 most thrilling moment of my infamous career, 1 say it was that moment. There I stzod at the bottom of those narrow stone stairs, inside the strongroom, with the door a good foot open, and I didn’t know whether it would creak or not. The light was coming nearer—and I didn't know! 1 had to chance it. And it didn’t creak a bit; it was far too solld and well- hung; and I couldn’t have banged it if T tried, it was too heavy; and it fitted so close that I felt and heard the air squeeze out in my face. Every shred of light went out, except the streak under- neath, and it brightened. How I blessed that door! _**No, he's not down there,’ I heard, as though through cotton-wool; then the streak went out, too, and In a few sec-¢ onds 1 ventured to open once more, and was in time to hear them creeping to my room. ““Well, now there was not a fifth of a second to be lost, but I'm proud to say I came up those stairs on my toes and 'fingers, and out of that bank (they’d gone and left the door open) just as gingerly as though my time had been my own. I didn’t even forget to put on the hat the doctor’s mare was eating her oats out of, as well as she could with a bit, or it alone would have landed me. I didn’t even gal- lop away, but just jogged off quietly in the thick dust at the side of the road (though I own my heart was galloping), and thanked my stars the bank was at that end of the township in which I really hadn’t set foot. The very last thing I OF S8R Eeacal gTs FROM EE,P?( HOCKER'S ASSOCIATION, <= I Wl SEFFERIES, —— T ) WONT FieAT il sor L. BECAUSE 17 3auz.o BE A CASE OF A3SAQLT AND BATTERY ON® MY PART FITZSIMIMONS oM MY, rmeATRI CAL A G EMENTS. THEY, AEE 2 s - "OLD LADIES’ When he stripped to take his medicine (and the $00, he hoved) he sure was a corker. Zip, he came at me to get the money quick. I let him have his way for a while, slipping past his hardest swings, and when he placeu his jaw proper let him have it. Down he went a heap. He came back at me with fine spunk untn I landed my, right on his ear. When he came out of it, and it was a long time ‘before he got on earth again, he asked: “What place is this?” I fall off'n the barn?” Next morning he came around to see me to show that there wasn't any hard feelings, and he invited me to look through the mill where he worked. Just before we got to the mill there had been an accident, one of the workmen losing part of a hand in some gears. My oppo- nent of the night before explained to me how the accident occurred. “He was shoving a plece of steel in there when he rested his hand like that™ —and the poor fellow put his own hand in the same gears and he fell fainting in my arms with two fingers gone. If he reads this T want him to know I am still sorry for him. I left behind enough coin to make him think he'd won that $500. A French Professor’s Opinion of His Voice. ‘When I was over in Paris I was taken around a great deal and one of the places And then, “Did . 1 visited was the studio of a teacher of music. There was in the place a battery of the finest pianos you ever saw. Think- ing it was a good chance to have my voice tested, so that if I wanted to go into the ballet when I got old, I'd be ready, I gave the keys of one of the pianos a right hook and roared out a few notes of a song. “What do you call my voice, profes- sor—tenor, soprano, falsetto or what?” 1 asked. The professor clapped his hands over his ears and when the wi.dows stopped rattling he said: “Don’t call it, Monsieur Sullivan, don't call it; let it continue to sleep.” A French army officer told me that if I'd stay In France he was sure that they could place me in the service as in- structor of punching. . “Your way of fighting would be great at close quarters,” said this Freneh army officer. ‘“When we meet the Germans again our men would be trained for close quarters fighting so that, poof, we dis- perse them like that!” During my visit to France as the na- tives couldn’t very well understand my kind of French and their kind of Eng- lish was as easy to understand as the vell of a Baltimore oyster man, we put in most of the time sizing each other up. Most of the natives had an idea I was chief of a tribe of Indians in America and when I went into the ring, after training on raw. meat, I painted my face and wore ear rings in my nose. France is a nice country, but the food they give you is flavored with hairoil and they have an idea that a grown up has the ap- petite of a canary bird. He'd Save Two Good Men From Going to the Bad. While in Milwaukee not long ago I learned that Frank Craig, the “Harlem Cooler,” was slinging hash in a restau- rant there. George Dixon is stranded in Z 2 heard was the two managers raising Cain. and the coachman. And now, Bunny”— FHe stood up and stretched himself, with a smile that ended in a yawn. The black windows had faded through every shade of indigo; they now framed their opposite mneighbors, stark and livid in the dawn: and the gas seemed turned to notlring in the globes. “But that's not all?" I cried. “I'm sorry to say it is.” said Raffles 2pologetically. “The thing should have ended in an exciting chase. I know, but somehow it didn't. 1 suppose they thought I had got no end of a start; then they had made up their minds that 1 belonged to the gang, which was not S0 many miles away, and one of them had got as much as he could carry from that gang as it was. But I vasn’t to know all that, and I'm bourd to say there was plenty of excitement left for me. Lord, how I made that poor brute travel when 1 got among the trees! Though we must have made it over fifty miles from Melbourne, we had done it ut a snail'’s pace, and those stolen oats had brisked the old girl up to such a pitch that she fairly bolted when she felt her nose turned south. By Jove, it was no joke. in and out amnong those trees and under branches with your face in the mane! I toldyou about the forest of dead gums? It look- ed perfectlv ghostly in the mooniight. And I found it as still as I had left it— so still that I pulled up there, my first halt, and lay my ear to the ground for two or three minutes. But I heard Fngland. Young Corbett is going to the wall. These few tips of how soon a fighter can go to the bad when he don't look out for himself ought to be a warn- ing to such promising material as Phil- adelphia Jack O’'Brien and George Gard- ner, two men who did look good to me. O’Brien has met Hugo Kelly four times, a draw in Kansas City, in Chicago when O’Brien ‘won, in Philadelphia when no decision was given, but O'Brien was evi- dently on top, and last in Indianapolis when Kelly won. Gardener was walloped in Salt Lake City a while ago by Mike Schreck, who had no license to do any- thing of the kind, and the man who stored away Jack Root and gave Fitz- simmons one of the toughest fights of his career took a drop backward. Both O'Brien and Gardner have come up through hard work. O'Brien went away from Philadeiphia, where he wasn't appreciated, and walloped everything in England. Gardner went away from home, where he wasn't taken seriously, and after hunting out the best méen he could fiad in Africa and Australla, came home to make good. Foelish living is doing them both up. I'd like te get the pair of them together long enough to bat some sense into them. I've been through the mill and advice from me on the score of silly living is worth dollars to any boxer with wit enough to take a brace and “come back.” If they don’t brace they will both be counted out very soon. This is no pipe dream. It's as cold a fact as they will find in a day’s hunt. Bubble-Blowers to the Tall Weeds. The three-cornered taffy-passing sworry goes on. Jeffries says Fitz is the real thing for heavyweight champ after him. Fitz says Jeff is a great man and that one J. Corbett is the greatest boxer the world has ever seen. Corbett owms up that Fitz, a middleweight, is a better man than he is a heavyweight, and he says that Jeff is a better man than I am because he has fought us both and ought to know., Fudge, pish. tush, rats. Fitz has delivered the goods and is en- titled to all he has. He never got his reputation because of educated feet. But Jeffries has not only sidestepped yours truly, but he has ducked Marvin Hart after a dozen promises to meet him. As for Corbett, when he puts footracing be- fore straight-and-above-board fighting he might as well try to prove that a cruiser is a better fighter than a battleship be- cause it can run away from a fight. Those who make a trade of fighting know better. Had I been able to make Corbett pause long enough in his running to let me hand him one in his pantry or on the jaw he would have different notions in his noddle when he woke up. I carry more lard near the belt than I used to do, but the swelling has not gone to my head. The lard is being trained from my front and a few more months of the kind of work I am doing will put me in shape to make some of these bub- ble-blowers put their flags at half-mast. To begin with I'll give history a jolt backwards by landing on'Charley Mitch- ell in September and unless I am a four- flusher of the two-fer size the tall weeds will be populated by prenoms and long- distance pedestrians. If I dom’t, may [ never see Boston and Billy Hogarey again. nothing—not a thing but the mare's bellow and my own heart. I'm sorry, Bunny, but {f ever you write my memoirs you won't have any difficulty in working up that chase. Play those dead gum trees for all they're worth. and let the bullets iy like hail. I'll turn around in my saddle to see Ewbank coming up hell-to-leather in whita suit, and I'll duly paint it res Do it in the third personm, and they won't know how it's going to end.” “But I don’t know myself,” I com- plained. “Did the mare carry you all the way back to Melbourne?” “Every rod, pole or perch. I had her well seen at our hotel and returned her to the doctor in the evening. He was tremendously tickled to hear I had been bushed. Next morning he brought me the paper to show me what I had escaped at Yea.” ‘Without suspecting anything?” h,” said Raffles as he put out the gas, “that is a point on which I've never made up my mind. The mare and her color was a coincidence—luckily she ‘was only a bay—and I fancy the condi- tion of the beast must have told a tale. The doctor’'s manner was certainly dif- ferent. I'm inclined to think he sus- pected something, though not the right thing. I wasn't expecting him, and I fear my appearance may have in- creased his suspicions.” T asked him why. “I used to have rather a heavy mus- tache,” said Raffles, “but I lost ft the day after I lost my innocence” ’