Evening star., 1909-03-07
CULLEN WRITES OF
FIGHTING GAME
Would Like a Permit to Pull
Off Bouts at Glen
Echo.
By Clarence L. Cullen.
Corresnopdence of The Star.


mouth was watering over the possibilf-
ties of Washington as town 1or the
scrap stuff. He knew what he was
talking about. too.
There's the little burg-Washington
where the duff could be raked down
| in binfuls if they'd stand for the fight
| thing in that neighbrhood." said he. l
know, because, years ago, I pulled OH
two or three little bifferino festivals at
Bladensburg, and I had to hire bullies
to fight off the men who wanted 10
| hand me their money to see the scraps.
washington was meant TO be
sporty town. But the sporty 1oIks
there are smothered. They've got the
bee -baw- buffalo sign tackled on them
all the time by the authorities. and It's
| the only town in the United States, SO
| thew tell me. where the cops can
walk in on you, If they see you
through a window, playing cassino or
old maid or euchre with your middle
aged aunt and haul you off to the
ciink and send you away for infamous
| conduct and things. That may De
overstating 1t little, but you know
what I mean.
But Washington is full of peonls
who are interested in the fmitt game
and who have the price to indulge their
interest. Only, you know. there isn't
any chance. Nothing of that sort can
be pulled off within the limits Of the
District of Columbia without the peo-
pie starting it taking a chance on
learning the chair-caning business at
Moundsville. and as for commencing
anything like that in nearby points III
Virginia or Maryland. wake up.
There's a drum all made to order
for fights at n place on a trolley line
near Washington called Glen Echo.
fEheu. how natural It sounded to hear
that old name once moreD 1T started
off to be chautauqua. but got side
amphitheater is still there. Never was
a place on the globe better adapte'
for the scrapperino thing. I could, II
they'd let me. pack In oh, quite ever so
many thousands of folks with a bone
or two in their mitts by way of price.
and give 'cm nice, ten-round limit
things, say, between the best fin-sway-
ers for that money, and I could get so
rich al it inside of three years that I'd
be bidding on the Capitol a place in
which to keep my silk-lined haber-
dashery. The amphitheater Is removed
from the town, SO that nobody would
be harmed any, and the bunch of chaps
who work in the departments and who
have no place to go except to the meet
ings of the Epworth League or to the
moist works would be tickled some.
thing ridiculous to have little events
like those that I mention to pop into
times a week
But here I am hasheeshing again.
Nix the chance. You can't even buy a
bag of peanuts on weekday out at
that Glen Echo place that I'm dream
ing about, because it's in a Maryland
county where the authorities hate pros
perity and things. Say, If I could mass
10000 people into that Glen Echo am
phltheater to see game Of tiddlewfnks
Id be Dinched for violating a Tuesday
IhurSdHv ha r
pulled the game off on. and my hair 'ud
be cut by a clipper in the hands Of a
confined West Virginia barber for about
nineteen years and three quarters
But compact little old WASHINGTON
Where the game guys haven't anything
else TO do but to get soused If they're
not gong 10 count the number Of pansies
IN Lafayette Park-Washington' the
place for the fight stuff If only It could
he pulled off. which 1t can't and here I'm
Just ooZing south breeze when T ought
TO be thinking about something that
I've got one to fifty chance of doing
winch sounded some correct to me
this mans spiel about the rpeness OF
Washington for little mitt excitement
at that. 1 was over in Washington
not long ago, and every other chap that
l met gave me the haul-around to ask
me how this or that new scrapper looked
and what the game was amounting to
in New York and were the SCRAPS ON
the level and worth while and all like
that, and there was a sort of hankerins
look In their wicks as they talked about
the stuff.
Sure thing, they'll have scraps I'm Wash
1ngton some old day-by the time saw
that the hull south side of the Avenue
IS pulled down and added to the Mall.
Oh, yes. chess, sure by that time.
Jim Jeffrles and his theatrical trolIpers
are due here in New York just about as
| write this, and the fin talenters are
leaning forward in their chairs waiting
for chance to size the large person up
to see If he's got it in him to tuck the
moke away. If so be as how they ever get
together. Amazing reports have reached
mere about the big chaps speed "Thev
say that he can take and run a loco
motive into the ground on the road work
and that for wind. why he's got a KAN
sas cyclone looking and sounding like a
silly little murmuring among dead leaves
In the wan days of October. Likewise.
they are slipping 1t out that for bull
strength he still has it in him TO make
a brown bear of the Sierra Nevadas look
like a kitten playing with a ball of yarn
in front of the old base-burner-and all
like that.
There must be something in all this
hop talk, too. In all of the towns where
the large feller has shown since he
abandoned the Los Angeles groggery to
again scale the heights Of kale, the sure
enough experts have been commenting
upon how right jeff looks as viewed from
each and all angles. Maybe the dinge
IS kee-rect in his line of personally con-
Quoted argument in sending out word
that he guesses, maybe. after all. that
he won't fight none or nobody for q year
or So he reckons, yas'm.
In the meantime man who saw the
BurnsJohnson fight got here last week
with a piece of peculiar statement. He
claims to have it right that before that
battle came off Burns, feeling that he
was going to get the dose from Johnson
had his agent offer the boog $4,000 to
lay down, and that johnson, knowing
equally well that he was going to make
Burns curl w like garter snake under
a wagon wheel, refused the benevolent
offer
Oh, well, "they say" and let them say.
*
The champeen dopists in the prophecy
line among the base ballsts of this town
Of reasoning whereby they Just as good as
make a present to the Maps of the Amer
lean League pannant this year. They're
not specific or explicit or things about It.
They just come out and say that the
Cleveland club has got the rag laid away
I'm mothers old work basket, and that's
all there is to it. Queer thing is that
they seem to be unanimous about ii
There's nothing particularly new about
the Cleveland lineup this year except tha
annexation of that antique and fine old
gentleman. Cy Young, the HEAVIER, to war