Omaha daily bee., 1899-03-05
PALAVER OF THE PUGILISTS
Some of the Past Weeks Fistic Hap
penfngs ~hronicle for the
Red Hots.

Western admirers of the glovemen may
possibly have a chance of witnessing tue
mill between the big California boilermaker
and Fitzsimmons. The Triangle Athletic
club of Chicago has made an apparently bona
fde offer of a $15, 900 purse for the ARRAY,
for 1t has sealed It's bid with a deposit Of
$500. If this offer is accepted It is said that
the scrap will be pulled off in Davenport,
where several mills have lately been held
with success and without the intervention
of the copper's billy. 1t is hardly believed
that Mayor Harrison would permit the bout
to be decided in the Windy city.
This offer is not so much out OF the way
as might be expected. In fact, no club has
offered to put up a bigger bunch of money
than So, 900. When the blacksmith and the
boilermaker agreed to daily with each others
form for a period not to exceed twenty
rounds their mental fontlets witnessed vi
sions OF bewildering dollars. But the elusive
sign of the dollars has vanished from their
mental functions as the breath from the
window pane. Club managers are refrain
ing from the dangers of sprai1ed ankles by
refusing to sprint after the crimson-topped
Robert and the curly-haired Jeffries. Con-
sequently there are but two other bidders
besides the Davenport club, one from New
York and the other from Frisco. O'Rourke
and his Lenox Athletic club might reason
ably be expected to outbid everybody else,
but Tom and Fitz are on cold-storage terms
and their enmity is such that O'Rourke
wouldn't hang up a purse If he could realize
a million.
As a matter of fact, the proposed meeting
of Fitz and the hulking boilermaker has not
aroused the emotions Of the Queensberry fol-
lowing, the majority of whom hold that
%Jeffries, with all his thew and sinew, his
imposing sweep Of shoulder and mighty
chest, is a choice morsel of tapioca for the
brick-chested man from Dingoland, Jeffries
is judged by the eastern critics on his show
ing against Bob Armstrong in New York.
He was loggy of foot and awkward as a
bunch Of angles when he met Armstrong,
thought his manager AYERS that a sore hand
was the cause CT his protege's tame per-
Torrance against Armstrong, alias the Des
Moines Cuckoo. His decision over Sharkey
is scarcely taken as a criterion, as Sharkey
was firm on his pins at the last bell tap and
could have continued on for ten rounds.
That this offer Tor the Fitz-Jeffries fight
is not an emanation from a hot-air artist is
further indicated by the fact that the self
same Trl-city Athletic club Is making ready
for other big istic events. On one Of the
cards is a go between Kid Mccoy and Jim
Corbett, which is said to have been showed
in the background simply to permit the
arrangements for this other and bigger event
between the champion and the aspiring
Californian.
Old Tom Allen, one OF the prominent
figures in the history of American pugilism,
has just been acquitted Of the charge ofkilling
a stage hand in st. Louis the other day. This
ARRAY was a fitting climax to Aliens
troubled career in the ring. He was a con-
]spicuous fighter in the old days Of the bare
maulies, when every ring encounter meant
a riot. He won considerable notoriety in
England and in 1867 migrated to this
He made his first mark in the fol-
lowing year in American pugIlistlc circles,
when he held a pistol on the referee Of a
fight between Tommy" Kelley and "Milly'
in Virginia, threatening to kill
him If he decided for Kelley, While Kelley's
friends broke into the ring and took the
boxer of, a general fight ensuing. Aliens
most famous fight in this country was with
Jem Mace near New Orleans in 1870, Mace
winning, and with Joe" Goss in Kentucky
in 1876 for the championship Of America,
Goss winning on a foul. The latter fight
took place in two rings in different counties
owing to the Interference OF officers. Allen
was arrested, convicted and served a term
in the penitentiary. Another OF Aliens
famous fights was the one with Mike McCool.
occurred on an island in the Miss.s-