Evening star., 1898-10-01
new YORK GOSSIP
7" 3t
Types Of Men Who Frequent Coney
Island Prize Fights.
THEY WANT KHOCKoUTs EVERY time
Disgusting spectacIes in Guise Of
IF
Manly Sport.
VARIOUS TIMELY TOPICS
THEY WANT KHOCKOUqS EVERY time
VARIOUS TIMELY TOPICS
Special Correspondence of The Evening Star.

| Special Correspondence of The Evening Star
NEW YORK, September %. 1895.
| After you have taken in one two of
| the Monday night scientific boxing con-
| tests" at the big barn down on Coney
| Island called the Greater New York Ath-
letic Club. you likely to conclude that
bull-fighting would be a tremendous go
over here. The bedizened matador directs
his cruelty toward the extirpation of a
beast; the maddened bull impales himself
upon the tip of the raper, and there is an
end of It. Not often does bull achieve
| the conquest of a man in the ring; yet it
| is very true that Spaniards feel very
sorry, and exhibit tLeir sorrow in tears and
wa1lings, when man goes wrong at the
points of a bulls horns In a canopied am
phitheater. When punched man, plunged
IN Stygian darkness from a careful, we'll
| aimed blow upon the point of his jaw,
Writhes agonizediy upon the padded deck
| Of the Coney Island ring. while the shirt
| sIeeVed referee with sweeping vertical
| movement of his two arms, counts the
fatal ten seconds over the PROSTATE mans
! c11cass-at such a grewscme moment does
the New York man produce his handker-
| chlet ana bemoan the sadness Of an era
which permits two human brutes. physical
~ well wrought, to hammer each other to
| the verge of dissolution In an Enclosure
| that is only six miles as the crow flies from
| the city hall of the metropolis of the west
ern world? No. The New York man, talk
ii,g ias. over tne beers with friend. descants
learnedly upon the relative merits of the
uPpercuts, counters and swings and goes
| home refreshed.
Many Men of Standinr
| And the New York man who thus goes
nome refreshed is not necessarily of the
| Bowery, either. If this were the case. the
| matter would not be worth talking or writ
| ing about In the domain of toughdom the
| pitched punch will probably exist as an in
| stltution for the remainder of time But
| in New York it has come to be an institu-
| ton in the domain of decency That is to
| say the men who flock down to the Coney
| Island barn on Monday nights to take in
| these scientific boxing contests are in
| respect to their daily lives and their rela-
| nonship to law and society, not toughs at
| all-not by a good seventy-tive per cent of
| them. he toughs 60 of course, and their
| Chuck Copners patois through the
| hum of talk with toD-note dscordance.
| But they are decidedly outnun bered by the
| Well-clad gang, business and professional
men of standing VINO yet have sneaking
| leaning toward the Tcheap thing called
| "sportiness. These, for the time being
| willingly convert themselves cto imitation
| hoodlums. and talk Steve Irodiese, and
| hoot and howl, and exchange swigs from
| black TASKS, and in general portray the
| natural Droclivities of the time over here
in very realistic way. Banker, baker,
| candlestickmaker, doctor, lawy er, merchant
| chief-theyre all in the ''pus h" down at
''de barn" when these Monday night con-
| tests pulled off. The MIN of family
sits contentediy alongside the thief and
| exchanges flask drinks with him in a
spirit of close carnaraderie. TIE high-sala-
ried city or state official sits cheek by jowl
with the tout or known crook, and the
| two speculate learnedly upon the outcome
/ OF the next round.
| Il
| Want a Knockout.
| In it's reference to the contests that take
place within the ring Of the Coney Island
| barn, scientific boxing contest is t
press agents amiable way of describing in
advance what is intended, as matter of
| course, to be a violation Of the law pro-
hibiting Knockout prize fights. To fully
| understand the meaning of that phrase
''the roars of the populace," one must hear
the angry howls of the 5000 or 10000 spec
| tators at Coney Island prize fight when
one or the other of the chief contestants of
| the evening fails to score a Knockout,
Mere blood C'claret" is the pugilistic term
doesn't satisfy en- they want one of the
| men to be put out to lie as prone as a
| deceased dog, before they are willing to
| depart in a spirit of entire happiness and
| content: and if they don't get what they
want, they yell Fake and chuck cush-
ions and benches into the ring in quite the
| ancient gladiatorial spirit. When one
| comes to reflect upon it, it surely does seem
| odd to think of the clerk of q New York
| court of law. established middle
aged physician with a fashionable Murray
| Hill practice, standing the top of his
| seat, when some feature of the fight fails
to please him, and franctically saving the
| the top of his voice, Take out that stiff"
| or Hes lobster!' or That dub couldn't
! whip me grandmother"' or Its bum de-
| cisioni' or Gimme me money back" II
| Vat is oho
| an exaggerated picture. It's precisely what
you'll see if you ever muster up sufficient
nerve or latent hoodlumism to witness a
| scientific boxing contest at de barn.
| Now, a scientific boxing contest between
! a pair of wel-matched men is not an evil
thing to witness: 1t is no more evil in its
| spirit than a bout at fencing.
| Brutal Spectacle.
| But this is not the sort of game that is
| furnished to the New York man for the 81
| or So that he pays at the door Of the Coney
| Island barn. The Coney Island affair is al
| ways a battle of from twenty to twenty
| five rounds duration, between completely
| unmatched men. 1t Is always a punching
! match, pure and simple. 1t is always an
| affair in which the savage love OF british
| ness, inherent in the blood of men is pam
| dered to, and coddled, and nourished. Af-
| fairs of this character are brought off with
| in an easy enough riding distance of Wash
| ington, at odd times, during IA certain sea-
son. An element of the Washington popu-
| lation rides out to "amphit theater'' ad-
| joining a road house not very distant from
| Washington, to assuage their appetites
| for this especial manner of brutishness
| But do Washington men, who profess to be
| gentlemen, Washington men of character
| and personal dignity, attend upon these af-
| fairs? The writer, who knows Washington
| from Great Falls to Anacostia, and from
! Silver Spring to the 7th street wharf, fan
| cies not.
A recent scientific boxing contest down
| at de barn was Witnessed by 10000 men,
| The fight was between a practicei pugilist
cat-footed, shifty and finished. wiry ami
| NAL, of about 1657 pounds in weight, and a
huge man of Falstaffian girth from Buffalo
This elephantine Buffalonian weighed when
| he entered the ring exactly 223 pounds
which We're padded in3huge welts of flesh
about his five foot eight frame. He knew
| apparently, much of the art of boxing
| as Agunaldo does of modesty, but he had
| a very great power of endurance indeed
So he hobbled around the ring for twenty
| rounds did this Faistaff of the ring. per
mitting his opposing Bardolph to nnnch