Arizona republican., 1898-11-11
A GLIMPSE OF cRoKER.
As Prize Fighter and Bully He Bossed
 His Gang"

Croker became a professional trainer and packer of prize fighters in the late sixties. Among those whom he train ed for the prize ring were Pete" Ma
 guire. Mcguire was matched to fight Abe" Hicken Of Philadelphia, who was backed by Billy McMullin, noted leader of plug uglies and repeaters of the Quaker city. Croker arranged all the details of the fight, which came off near Baltimore, February ,. 1868. The friends Of Mcguire and Hicken mat on q train on the way to the place and had a free fight. Dick Croker took an active part in this fight. When the af- fair was over. dozen men were lying senselesS in the car.
 The first prize fight in which MT. Croker took part as a principal is said to have taken place in the cellar of q house owned by one McAnearney.
 'Reddy" Haskins was Dicks opponent. Later Dick met Pat Kelly in the ring in saloon at Thirty ninth street and Third avenue and put him to sleep" An attempt was next made to arrange fight between Croker and "Owney" Geoghegan but it never amounted to anything but talk The battle best re- memb1red by Dicks old associates is the one he fought with "Dickey' Lynch in Jones's Wood on Sunday morning in 1866. Lynch was famous as a ring hero, but he was no match for Croker and was carried from the field after some Of his teeth had been knocked down his throat.
 Denny" Leary and Matt" Green were also victims to CrolZer's fistic prowess in the prize ring Outside the professional engagements of the pres- ent nestor Of practical politics i'll New York, he engaged in numberless barroom brawls and sidewalk scraps" When he is sitting wrapped in thought in his gilded democratic club, and his henchmen speak in awed whispers, what affairs of mighty moment to the state are passing through his mind? It may be that "Mr." Croker is only mus ing reminiscently of the time he had the 'shindy' in Jim Cusick's rat and dog pit on the west side of town. What an exhilarating time that wasl You see, Croker had matched his dog to fight Cusick's dog-Cusick, by the way, occasionally amused Croker and his friends by getting in the pit and killing rats like any dog, with his teeth-and on the night the fight took place the dingy pit was lined with friends of both the wOrthies. Croker's dog was getting the worst of it when the fun really began. DICK and his friends jumped in,O the. pit, and Cusick and his friends met them there. It was q beautiful slugging and biting and gOuging scrimmage. and many an eye hung loose from the socket and many an ear was partly missing when it was all over
 A leader Of the Fourth Avenue Tun- nel Gang and as a ready and dangerous man with his dukes Dicks fame grew apac=, and he was the acknowl- edged boss of the Twenty first ward. That ward was not the safest place in Christendom during Croker's regime. It was there, at Thirty-second street and Second avenue, that Christopher Pullman, leading republican polite ian, was knocked senseless in 1868, re- ceiving injuries from which he never recovered.
 It was in that ward that Dorman B. Eaton was nearly killed by members Of theTunneI Gang, and it was there that James Moore was assaulted by Croker himself with a slungshot. An | account of this assault appeared in the | New York Times of September 8, 1871. | New York Mail and Express.