Omaha daily bee., 1899-03-12
PALAvER OF THE PUGlLISTS
Bids for the Fitzsimmons-Jcnrics
Fight Unexpectedly Lnrgc-Other
News of the Short-Hnired.


The admirers of the glove men are being
almost deprived Of their breath at the Of
fers that are being made for the Jeffries-
Fitzsimmons battle that is slated to take
place this spring. The inky-haired Hercules
from the Pacific coast, J~effries, was so gen
orally supposed to be nothing more than a
big bite of pie for the champion that It
was not expected that fight promoters would
raise much Of a sweat in sprinting after the
night. This sentiment up TO a week ago
seemed well founded from the fact that bid
ders were scarce and lying low.
Since that time, however. things have
changed and when the time for receiving
bids arrived last week no less than naif a
dozen offers of big money were handed in.
The largest comes from Bergen Beach, y. j.,
the proprietors of which resort have in
dicated that they will put up a purse Of
4 1000 In order to advertise their JOHN. san
Francisco comes forward with a $4,000 Of
fer and Butte, Mont, ranks next with $25,-
600. The Wcstchester Athletic club of New
York and the Triangle club of Chicago give
$2l 1000 each, the Coney Island club $50. 900
and the Tri-City club Of Davenport, Ia,
SIS, 900.
outside of the Chicago and the Davenport
offers the sportsmen Of Omaha will be most
interested in the 49,, 900 purse that has been
offered by the Butte people. This was made
possible by the fact that the Montana legis-
lature has passed a law permitting finish
contests to be pulled off in that state. The
Butte club seems to be in earnest from the
fact that 1t has intimated that it is willing
to increase its bid in order to get the fight.
There is some suspicion that Dan Stuart.
VINO engineered the Corbett-Fitz entertain
ment, Is behind this Butte proposition.
Tho NiEipr gg tho. t.i.t- "
caused the stra wberry blonde blacksmith to
prepare for the coming battle, and he is
talking of a new blow. the "zig-zag," which
is to rank with his solar plexus. the cork
screw" with which Mccoy did not put
sharkey to sleep, the "bcomerang'' aud the
other ready steps to victory that the pugs
nave been fond of Advertising. A little
thunder cloud, however, has arisen in the
Flt2simmons horison which may put an end
to this ARRAY with Jeffries. The other dav
the doctors, with the aid of the Y ray. dis
covered that the champions elbow funny
bone is cracked and they advised him not
70 night for two months at least. Fitz de-
clares that he will meet ~Jeffries. funny
Done or no funny bone" but this injury
may result in a postponement of the fight.
III was sustained during one OF Fits spar
ring exhibitions with Yank Kenney, the
'N'h6 w vi Tue GIDDW while
warding off one of Kenney's blows.
fllA VIII pose as one of the stellar attrac-
tons at the Paris exposition, according TO
manager Martin Julian. The latter was re-
Gently interviewed as follows regarding a
European tour for his pet: 'As soon as we
step foot on the other side we are going to
issue a challenge in behalf of Fitzsimmons
to night all omers in the middle and heavy
weight divisions. Americans pay little heed
to the foreign fighters and it wouldn't sur
prise me at all if there were a big bunch of
unknowns all over the continent. as well as
IN Great Britain, who would be only too
eager to get a chance to face the pride of
the United States. or course this challenge
Will be framed in the regulation sort of way
and | imagine that clubs will pop I'D here
and there Offering big purses. Naturally it
will be our aim to arrange matters so that
the fight can be pulled eff near Paris. In
agine the immense crowd we would surely
have. Thousands Of visitors would be at the
exposition, with lots of money, and they
would pay well TO see a great fight. If some
big affair like this cannot be arranged we
intend to make a trip across some Of the
countries and match Fitz against the best
men wherever we may 60"
Gardner, the Omaha kid, has given it out
that he proposes to invade the tight little
isle this spring and beard the pugilistic lion
of England in his own den. He desires to
meet the winner of the Palmer-Rotchford
bout, which takes place before the National
Athletic club. II am stuck on seeing the
old country because I have heard my father
say so much about it," says Gardner. Il
am of an old Lancashire family and my
father came over to this country in the
steerage when he was a kid. His son will
go back on a tirst-Class cabin ticket, though
Gardner, jr., will not have a valet like
Sloan. Though the National club cannot
afford to offer such a fancy purse as
O'Rourke's club, | will be satisfied to sign
articles for any kind of a purse they will
offer. | want to have the satisfaction Of
saying about forty years from now, when
my pants are baggy about the knees and my
face sports a network of wind destroyers,
that | fought at the SWEETEST club in London.
| heard from Pedlar Palmer a few weeks
ago through DR.. Ordway, the American rep
resentative CT the club, and he tells me that
| Palmer breads the sea voyage and prefers
to meet all American corners in London. My
| friends ask me If | can draw down to 1lG
and be strong at that weight, / guess | am
| constructed on the F~itzsimmons plan. | can
! weigh in at 116 and be strong, or | can stay
at 1872 and go the distance, though | never
detected any difference in the weight. Pal
mer and Bonnie Jordan, who beat Dixon, are
the cleverest little men in England and If |
should prove so lucky as to run first in a
heat with Palmer l would agree to a treaty
of glove war with Jordan"
According to the local reports of the fight
! one of the brainiest conflicts ever put up
by a lightweight was fought by Erne in
San Francisco a week ago last Friday AMI
1t foists him above the majority of the
aspirants for the honors in the 133-pound
class. Hawkins fellow townsmen made
him the ~favorite in the betting that aver
aged 100 to so. Dial cut an offensive pace
Immediately after the battle started and had
Erne on the backward gait till the sudden
rally in the seventh. Erne delayed meet
ing Hawkins offensive work and when he
reversed his tactics In the seventh round he
fairly paralyzed the young Californian, who
was not expecting such a reversal. Joe
Cans, Jack DAILY and Champion Kid La
yigne are now the most dangerous OF Erne S
rivals in the 133-pound class. Erne evened
honors with Lavigne in a twenty-round
meeting at Coney island last September
and a return battle between the Swiss
900 IL