The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1913-08-16
JIM CORBETT'S COLUMN Calls GunbOat Smith Logical Candidate
 For Heavyweight Championship

lit to resume his slams at yours truly. Edgren'S attacks usually take thef form of slurs my ability as a boxer of my courage during my career in the ring, and in his recent spasns he has been running true to form. Among other things it was stated in one of his articles that when I lost the cham pionship to F'itzsimnons was beaten by a middle-weight-
 AS a, rule I pay no attention to any thing Edgren writes about me as have become pretty well hardened to petty newspaper islanders in my many years before, and also for the reason that a knock from such source is considered a boost by those who know the author and his methods. But as he has made such gross nisstate- ments in the article referred to feel that it would be unwise to let it pass - unnoticed.
 Edgren says that Fitzsimmons was under the middIe-weight limit when he beat me. By that he means that F'itz weighed 158 pounds or less As everyone knows heavy-wei ghts are not compelled to make public their weights, or at least were not in the old days, and a fighter in that division might weigh a ton for all the diff ference it made. don't know what Bitzsimmons' exact weight was the day of the Carson fight, but the prob
 
 between us. and I know that was considerably above the middle-weight limit at the time.
 E'itz was a great fighter in every sense of the word. He beat me fairly. have never disputed that. The only cause for complaint I have against him is that he refused to give me another fight. I have always felt that I would have reversed the decision in another meeting had I been given the chance. And evident 1y Fitz felt about the same way as he avoided me from that time on.
 However, it is of Edgren wish to say a few wordsAtoA give the public an idea of what lies behind his at tacks upon me. A few years ago he called on me in my dressing room at a local theatre-It was when I was doing light preparatory work for my coming fight with Jeffries, then the champion-and during our conyersa- lion, he expressed the opinion that a man could not be knocked out with a blow in the stomach. To make a long story short, I demonstrated that he was wrong few days later in a local uzn, and ever since then Edgren has been knocking me at ev- cry Opportunity.
 Edgren was at one time an amateur hammer thrower. His record in that line of athletic endeavor, however, was nothing to that he established in the hammer throwing line in the newspaper on which he is employed. The surprise is that his employers allow him such liberties. As an au-1 thority on matters pertaining to the ring Edgren is locally regarded as the biggest kind of a joke.
 I hope my readers will pardon me for indulging in personalities in this column. My excuse is that self-res-| pect VcompeIs me to acquaint them with the character of the man who has attacked me in his paper. To give you a further idea of Edgren's standing in newspaperdom I quote the following comment from the New York Globe on the article in ques- ton:
 .aThe blow that Fftzsimmons de- feated Corbett with at Carson City was not nearly so painful as. the most recent account of that battle that ap-I peared in a New York evening paper. Some people find it hard to forget Even the Sporting Oracle of Park Row never forgaYe Jim Corbett for proving in a practical manner in an uptown gymnasium thai the blow that F'itz hit. him was simply a punch in the stomach, and that t'so1ar plexus'' is but an invention of some ones over-fertile brain. That's why he has been Knocking 'Gentleman Jim'' ever since, is the belief of James J.
 ''The loss of that famous fight at Carson City in itself has long ceased to bother Jim Corbett. However, the weird accounts of the manner of his losing, circulated as he has reason to believe through personal malice by the Sporting Oracle, have ranked in his breast for some time."
 JAS. J. CoRBETr.