Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-05-19
By Clarence L. Cullen.


It isn't any likely thing that many of
these pugilistic persons-the double
crossed and the double crossers-have
ever heard of Aesop. Yet most of them,
If they have any wit at all, must have
heard about the goose that laid the
golden eggs and the greed -obsessed fool
that killed that same goose. The one
thing about them that is dead certain Is
that. like the fool in the old Greek fable,
they surely are engaged In slaughterinG
their goose of the auriferOus eggs.
O'Brien isn't any bullet head He never
belonged to the low-brows. Yet he is
the man who has administered what
may prove to be one of the final crush
ing blows at the fighting game in the
United States.
There are mighty few strongholds of
pugIlism left in the whole country. Pres
ently-very presently, if the many signs
mean anything-the whole situation will
he sewed up. The thing will die of in
anition. which is another way of saying
that II will expire for lack of gate re-
ceipts. If curiosity killed a cat then
for sure thing fakery will kill. if it
has not already killed prize fighting.
Horse racing has few strongholds left
in this country-and they are none so
strong. either-solely owing to the dis
repute into which the game fell owing
to the trickery, the outright crookedness,
of its manipulators. Bicycle racing
would have survived the general use of
the bicycle in this country had 1t not
been for the knavery that grew up in
connection with it. Bicycle racing Is
still a big thing in France and Germany,
but some reports which have trickled over
nf 10
Americans participating in wheel contests
abroad are introducing American methods
of framing up things against the public,
so that bicycle racing is not likely to en-
dure much longer anywhere.
Wherever the cheating thing has crept in.
the people who pay their good coin to see
the events. who bet their good coin
upon the outcome of the events, have
promptly curled up like caterpllars before
bonfire That's the way they have curled
up In most parts of the country on the
last of the hippodroming games, the fight
ing game.
1t isn't likely. when the game actually
is all over In this country, that it will ever
revert to Its former estate, where the fight
Ing mugs biffed each other in remote forest
Businesses, with select circles of gun-pack-
Ing DULLES and plug-uglies standing around
the ring. under the f1aring light of smoky
torches, to watch the proceedings. Not
much is II. The Differs who used in the
old days to engage in that sort of thing
only required in Their business, and only
asked for, purses of a few hundred dollars
wherewith to get and remain soaked for the
period of a few months. In these days the
rings around-rosy fx-it fighters hace learn
ed to pull the long face If the figures named
for their appearance IN the ring don't run
away up in the five figures. They don't
want merely rum money. but the price of
automobiles and houses and lots and
stables of trotting horses and things. So
that there isn't any proba bility whatever
that the game will ever become out-in-
the-woods affair again. You can't build
amphithe aters In the woods overnight with
a watchful constabulary peering around,
and 1t takes amphitheaters to hold the kind
of money the pugs of this era demand. So
that II is very reasonable to conclude that
with just one or two more of those O'Brien-
Burns affairs. the biting game will become
virtually extinct in the United States.
The human twist about that O'Brien-
Burns thing doesn't appear to have been
much dwelt upon by any of the sporting
writer's who have commented upon the af
falr-the writers who saw the mill, / mean.
There was a big dramatic moment in that
fght-the opening moment when O'Brien
with what must have been a palng cheek
saw that Burns, whom he thought he had
bought was out to thrash him. What must
have been the CONSERVATION, not to say the
fear. in the midriff OF the OBrien person
at that wretched moment. Here he was up
against bulky. blocky and pretty shifty
Mulligan of whom he was absolutely
afraid-it seems perfectly reasonable to
suppose that O'Brien knew In his heart
that Burns could put ii on him. He had
figured wrongly. The Mulligan had not
stayed bought. He was going to fight to
win. There were sparks In his lamps He
was tense with passion. And there was
no chance for O'Brien to run away then.
The crowd was assembled. Time had been
called. They were fronting each other. The
Philadelphia mans knees must have wab-
bled under him at that miserable moment
for a sure thing. 1t makes bit of study
for a psychologist, that rig-up, IL indeed
psychologists dip into the realm of punch
ology.
Away back yonder In 1892 when at
tached to the staff of a Chicago newspa-
per. 1 saw one of those double-cross things
pulled on, and a right murderous affair 1t
was, too. Fighting wasn't allowed in Chi
cago that year. because they were cleaning
house municipality preliminary to the
worlds fair. which began the following
spring. So the pugs had to do the out-in-
the-woods hike and battle for the purses
made up by the dead-games who enjoyed
trekking through swamps and such like
In the middle of the night to see persons