The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1899-12-28
FitzsimmOns Has a FOndness
For Animals.
Pet Lion Was Killed by a Live
Wireo
he HAD A PELICAN
Which Once WOrsted the Cub
in a Fight.
Lion Distinguished Himself by
Killing a Calf.

Washington. Dec. 8.-The Post pup
fishes the following story as told by
Charley White New York's most popular
referee:
Prize fighters are queer ducks, and
sometime when I get to thinking of the
'Pecks Bad Boy shines they cut up, 1
begin to suspect they need hypodermlc
squirt of insect powder into their top
piece. Bob Fitzsimmons has an over
grown bug doing spirits around his cere-
bellum. Fftzsimmons' bug-Or fad guess
you would call it's training wild ami
mails. When Fitzsimmons made his first
match with Corbett. for the fight that
was booked for Hot Springs and never
took place, he engaged me for his trainer.
Before we started south for his training
quarters, FitzsimmOns and myself and
one of his friends, a big-hearted lriShman
from Brooklyn named Mccarthy, VINO
was in 50 500 on Fftzsimmons' end of the
stake money, used to take in Coney ISL
and every day.
cied down at the island was menagerle
in a hanlzy pank circus run by a friend OF
FitZsimmons' attention and the owner of
the circus. seeing that Bob was stuck on
the Junior member of the king of the
beast family Fitzsimmons was also stuck
on the mother of the cubs and INSISTED on
showing his big freckled fist into the cage
against the protest of the circus man
tween the bars I shut my eyes and SAD
to myself. There goes Mccarthy 5 y 9JO
f-ifzsin amor nav. McCarthy's INSTALL
ment in the FitzsimmOns end OF the stake
would have been cheWed up along with
when we went south. Fitz took the
cub with him and fed him on milk. You
could almost see the brute grow. and
every morning when I got VI, it seemed to
me that the yOungSter had taken on an
inch in the night and half dozen pounds
OF weight. We located at Bay St. Louis,
and FitZ developed another bug. he got
stuck on pelicans. One morning while
we were strolling along the beach a lad
led a fGV1 n a
shot and MANNED, and floating on the
ocean, a quarter of a mile away. Here
was Fitz' chance to add pelican to his
geological garden. which consisted OF a
fox terrier; a canary bird, two bull ter
half a dollar to pull his boat to the rescue
of the pelican.
bird and dragged him to the back YARD OF
our cottage. Fitz grabbed the bird BY the
tail. showed it between his legs and muz-
zled it with a slice of fishing net, and he
I'm bioimed if I don't train this bird
a few tricks ~ have him playing leap,
frog oyer that keg IN a couple OF Gays
if didn't think that Bob had rat in
Inside Of a week Fitz had his pelican
trained to jump over a barrel. The lion
got Jealous of the bird and whined like
whipped cur in the corner of the yard
while Fitz was training his latest addi-
ton to, to the F1tzs l mons zoo 0 ne gay
made dash at the bird But the pelican
ing match with his snout digging his bin
into the cubs eyes. Fitz broke them
away. His sympathy was aroused by the
defeat of his cub. He got sore on the
bird and turned him loose.
I'VE. went from Bay St Louis to Cor
pus Christi. Texas. When the school
children read in the papers that Bob Fitz-
simmons and his geological garden had
arrived they were afraid to go out on the
streets after dark One morning our
training camp was aroused by our land
lord, who woke Fitz and gave his tragic
tale of the escape of the lion. The papers
were filed with tales of F'itZ lost lion
that day. We had the police force and
all the small boys in town looking for the
lost brute. FitZ actually shed tears over
the loss of his pet. We secured the cOun-
try round about the town for three days.
One morning after breakfast the lion
sneaked out from under the dOOrsteps,
slOuched over to FitZ and showed his paw.
Fitz fOndled the brute like a mother hug
and found the remnants of q calf under
the steps. It seemed that the lion had
sneaked off to a stock farm in the neigh
bOrhOOd. killed a calf, dragged him back
to our house, made a meal off him and
was ashamed to show up till the horror
of his crime had blown over.
''Fitzsimmons lion was killed in Cleve-
land from a shock of a, live wire. Fitz
took his death to heart that he got
well sOused on Bass Ale. and had one of
those crying jays. Gorbloimy Chawley,
he said to me, L would rather lose my
bloomink right hand than that lion.
"FftzsimmOns' fondness for dumb brutes
amounts to a passion. He Is a natural
born animal trainer. While we were play
ing with a variety show out west some
of Edgar Daniel Boone, the lion trainer,
and was sore because Boone wouldn't al
low him to go into the lions den and
play with the brutes'