The St. Louis Republic. [volume] (St. Louis, Mo.) 1888-1919, 1903-12-28

I he had to make arrangements in advance,
| and one of the arrangements was gener-
ally making his will. Then came the quiet
| tip as to where the fight would be, and q
| journey to rendezvous.
From the rendezvous the crowd started
| for train or coach line. If the rowdies
Of Of = the neighborhood had heard + The
crowd was assailed on all sides by the
| toughs, who battered them on the heads
with war clubs, went through their pock-
| cts, took away Their watches and clIrren-
cy. and generally, gave, perfect imita-
| ton of wholesale hold-up.
Once free from the crowds, the fight
! fans were put in old railroad cars-accom-
modations a bit worse than modern cattle
| cars-and hustled out to the scene of ac-
| ticn-a level field. as near the confines If
two or three counties as possible.
ard pursued the fans for seven miles.
Over the fences and through the hedges
| ard mud, .helter-skelter. head over heels,
police. found a new battle-ground.
Here. perhaps, the men were brought
together. The battle was in daylight, with
ropes roughly tied to stakes forming the
ring. Round the ring the crowl pressed,
regardless of the weather. II 1t chancel
to be a muddy day they got the worst OF
it.
The front rows Of spectators were forced
to lie or sit in the mud; behind them
knelt more people. and the general multi
tude stood up.
As rule. the police appeared before the
fight hed gone very far. and again drove
everybody through the slush.
Once in about nine times the fight was
carried through to a point where one man
or the other seemed about to win. Then
would come wild pandemonium. The
roughs who followed one fellow or the
other would begin furious attack on ev-
erybody in sight, especially the winning
boxer; the air would be full of rocks and
clubs; the ring would be torn down. and
in frantic excitement the multitude would
vanish amid the woods and fields.
The fighting, as everybody knows, was
bare knuckle. but differed from modern
the governing rules, but in the actual
style of milling.
There were no swings and fancy hooks.
A swing with the bare knuckles, landing
on a head or shoulder blade. would work
havoc with the swinger's hand. 1t was
all straight hitting. jabs and uppercuts,
and wrestling formed probably half the
A hard fall on solid ground did the
thrown man much more damage than half
a dozen blows. Once in a while there was
landed such a blow upon Jem Mace-but
as a rule the losing man was either so
badly bruised by his falls or SO worn down
from exhaustion that he could go no
further.
The rules-ending a round as soon as a
man fell-were. oddly enough. extremely
gentle and merciful in this one particular.
Bare knuckle fighting was brutal; the old
ring game was horribly rough; but the
rule that ended a round the instant man
touched earth was gentleness itself COM
pared to the Queensberry law requiring a
man when knocked down to be up within
ten seconds.
After a fight the winner took all the
purse. and the loser got what might be
handed him in collection. Sometimes
he got more than the winner, IL the gen.
erous sports thought he had made good
fight.
The money collected and the fighters
dressed, all hands went through the CANT
number of cases of pneumonia which fol-
lowed every fight was something wonder
full