The Savannah morning news., 1903-09-17
HAVE YOU EVER BEEN
IN HARTFORD CO., ND?
EVER TRIED TO GET THE NEWS
OF A BIG FIGHT THERE::


From the New York Sun.
Il was becalmed right on the night
of the Jeffries- Corbett go, and 1 guess
maybe l wasn't wishing that the wire
less wigwaggers had not past the ex-
detrimental stage" remarked a New
York travelling man, who for his sins
and because his firm is now located in
that town is compelled TO live in Bal
timore when he's at home. My wife
was anchored on the farm of some
friends who till the soil and raise to-
matoes and things for the canneries in
Hartford county, Maryland, and on the
day before the fight I went down to SEE
her.
when l got up to the farm on the
morning of the fight l saw, back Of
the farmhouse, a couple of chicks of a
brood that must have been all of four
days old engaged in an ambitious, but
not very sanguinary, scrap and that
brought the impending swatfest at
San Francisco back to my mind. inn
nediately began to get busy trying to
find out how l was going to learn the
result before the frost-touched persim-
mons began to drop.
Il put on a very much abused, you
see-how-I -am-tied map on me when l
presented this problem to my wife.
you've got me snagged out here
in the land of the hanky-panks, | said
to her with fallen chops, and now it'll
probably be next Thursday week come
Nichaelmas before l find out who won
thu feht.'
This was a pin-bead opening. of
course, for 1t gave her the chance to
counter with the inquiry as to which
considered the more important, visit
with her or an opportunity to be in
front of the big end of a megaphone
while a couple of brutes 5000 miles
away were trying to beat each other
10 death. l avoided the full force Of
this one by clinching, and then she re-
Tented.
" There's a telephone right in the
dining room of this farm house. she
told me, and all you've got to do IS
to ring up one of the newspapers In
Baltimore and find out about the hor-
rid affair. (which do you think is
going to win, Jim or Jeff"
This sounded pretty good. l edged
into the dining room of the farmhouse
to take a look at the telephone. Yep,
it was a regular, honest Injun tele-
phone, hung right underneath the
chrome of the pink checked curly
haired angel lady carrying the waXy-
faced baby aloE toward the Milky
Way.
80 to make sure that it wasn't
phony or piece of bric-a-brac belong
ing on the what-not, l gave the bell
a twist and called up central-central
was at Bel Air, five miles away, and
asked for Baltimore. The young man
with the pink crocheted necktie at
Bel Air-I knew that he had one of
'em on, even if / didn't see him-told
me that the Baltimore wire was out
of klter for the first time since the
installation of the service.
THAT let me out The telephone was
still on the buck when we had finished
the sun-up farmhouse breakfast the
next morning, and so l began to hint
around about getting one of the farm
horses to drag me in a blackboard to
the nearest civilized point SOS l could
get the number of the winner of that
fight Nothing transpiring. All of the
nags were scheduled for field stunts
that day, and there wouldn't be airy
hike to the postof1ce until about 6
O'Clock that afternoon, when one of
the dinge hands would be sent to the
Fountain Green postoffice, two miles
away, to get the copy of the Baltimore
morning paper and such other seed
catalogue as happened to be directed
to the tillers of that particular section
of land.
well. I was going to find out the
hind name of the Jim who'd got that
decision before twilight or have some
body send me a mailing card telling me
why, and so / had 'em point out the
road to the Fountain Green postoff1ce
to me and I started to walk there on
the chance that maybe the Balti-
more paper might have arrived. and
If so, that it might contain a line or
so about the fight stuck away down
among the mothers bread ads.
i met lot of people driving in from
Fountain Green and Bel Air when l
hit the high road. TIL first of them
was an aged man in a caloosh that
looked like a cross between Louis the
Fourteenth streets state coach and an
East Side night-liner. There was much
alfalfa nesting in the crevices Of his
long, streamy wind enticers, but l de-
termined to take a chance, anyhow.
Sir l said to him, giving him the
salute, have you heard how the fight
came out?'
Hey?' he inquired of me, making
wlnd-scoop around his right ear with
both hands
Sir | repeated. eloquently I am
awaiting, with some little eagerness
word as to the result of the pugilistic
encounter in San Francisco last night
Wait a minute, sub. SOS All kin
heah 20 all, said the old gentleman.
and then he dropped the reins and be-
gan to fish around in the back of the
saloosh for something or other.
After hunting for about four min
utes he flashed a speaking trumpet on
me. Then / ran down the road l did
some footwork that would have made
Corbett in his prime look as if he had
on lead-soled shoes. and as l rounded
bend / looked back breathlesslv and
saw the old man with the mustard seed
IN his zephyr-inviters gazing sus-
ptciously after me.
The next one l met was an Eph in a
pyramidal straw lid through the top
OF which his reddish hair, mingled with
sprays of gypsum weed. protruded rak-
lshy. He was driving a brown-spotted
white horse, ia years of age, that
snored as he walked.
My friend l said winninglv. Civ
ing him the number four, maybe you've
heard who won the fight, and. If so.
maybe you wouldn't mind telling me
the winners name. ss-nunber. and
hammock-hook. If you do. shall
sake you to the sassiest sassafras qto-
gle that ever came out OF Smoketown-
in-the- Allegheny
The Eph pulled up and looked ne
over, while the broWn-spotted white
morse that was old when NAPOLEON was
on st. Helena leaned against a road
sloe tree and snored harder than ever
Fight, subj he said. 10 me. Who
ais been a-fightin? An sho Thought
the Spanish Wah was all DIM ~ and