The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1914-07-28
GI1NROAT SMITH WOULD HAVE WON IF REFEREE
 HAD ENFORCED RULES

Had cunboat Smith, the American
 white heavyweight champion, been compelled to observe the rules as Laid down by the Marquis of Queensbury 1 in his fight with Georges Carpenter
 In London last week, the chances are he would be recognized today as the worlds champion white heavyweight According to all the reports received
 from the scene of battle, and also according to the Hictures taken of the hit Carpenter when he was down, or rather on one knee. The rules state very plainly that the moment one boxer scores knockdown that he shall
 retire to his corner; or, if the knock down occur in his corner then he
 shall retire to the opposite corner Sof the ring, or to a neutral corner. An incident of this kind occurr cd recently at Hudson, Wis., and I t1welt upon the rules in these columns at the time. It now applies to Cunboat Smith. There was no excuse for Smith standing so near his fallen opponent that he should lose his head and deliver a blow while the man was down. Smith should have retired to his corner the moment he scored the knockdown, and it was the duty of the referee to see that he did retire. Of course, it is a hard matter for 8 referee to watch both men at the same time, that is, to stand over one man and count and watch the other to see that he does not com init a foul There should be a clause
 boxer for violating this rule. It could easily be fixed so that if a. boxer, after scoring a knockdown, failed to go to his corner, the referee could stop count ing long enough to send the man to his
 corner, and thus he would lose the count from where the referee stop
 ped and started again, which might cost him the battle by knockdown. The referee should be more particular in giving instructions to the boxers
 and take particular pains to warn them
 about a violation of this very point
 Smith has no one to blame but him self in this instance; as he should have
 known the rules thoroughly. Accord ing to the accounts, Carpenters sec- onds also committed foul in entering
 the ring while their man was down. Referee Corrf has stated that he did
 not see the seconds get into the ring until after he had awarded the fight to Carpenter on a foul, but that had he seen them he would have disquali- fled Carpenter just as quickly as he did Smith The adherents of Carpen- tier claim that Smith was down for thirteen seconds in the fourth round and their contention is upheld by the
 timekeeper, MT. Hulls, who said that
 he called the attention of the referee
 to the fact that Smith was down prac-
 tically fourteen seconds. However
 the referee took his own count, which
 in this case appeared to be slower than
 the watch. If these deductions are
 correct, then it appears that Carpen-
 tier was entitled to the verdict, for
 he really scored a knockdown in the
 fourth round, but did not come into
 his own until awarded the fight on a
 foul in the sixth Smith and his man
 ager, MT. Buckley, have also claimed
 that they were deprived of a sure vfc-
 tory, alleging that Carpenter was on
 the point of being knocked out when
 the decision was given against them
 on foul From an outside stand
 point, 1t appears that both sides are
 to blame to a certain extent and the excitement prevailing at the time was
 responsible for this. The fight cer-
 tainly stirred up the followers of ths