The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1914-10-29
KID IAVIGNE AND JOE wAICOTT NOT PARTICULARS
 ABOUT WEIGHT

ABOUT WEIGHT
 Nowadays pugf1istic champions will not risk their titles unless their sop- ponents deposit million dollars or so and guarantee to. make specified weight at a: certain o'clock They figure it down to ounces and minutes. But there was a time within the me- nory of the older fans, when boxers were not so b1ooInin, particular and were willing to take a. chance Two of these game lads were George LaRigne, the Sagfnaws 'sKid,s' and Joe Walcott. sstIae Barbados Demon. ss1 They were little sawed-om runts in pflysiqa1e, but either one of them would have fought a. sfx-foot heavy did do just that when he met the great Joe Ghoynskf ina New Y Drz ring in 19o0-and whats nores the dirninhtive black stopped 4his man in s seven rounds! Joe the Giant Killer stood only an inch and a. half over five feet, while Choynski was only a fraction of an inch short of six footer.
 A fight between two such game lads as the adian and the Black Demon might be expected to be full Of thril1s-and it certainly was! Just seventeen years ago today, en Oct 29, 1887, the sports had their last
 
 gIadiaAoas m the sarae The tight was staged in Esttseo, A1ls4ss Iaa4igf1e who was light weight annpion. won ozen rounds. While this battle Wass fza4a Of interest it lacked the ginger the earlier meeting between E 4a VI esa.zld sWalcott at Maspeth N. 1895. Old time sports will tell you hat, that was the greatest Ilt the sVorld TOT fifteen rounds the tile fellows banged away at each aether, hammer and tongs. giving and taking blows that would have d1seouraged many big fellows. In the end was called a draw, but I4avigne aaEad he alasad 6 o11s his dusky opponent
 zWsalcott ehalIenged all pssqa11i- Slieiat heavy reights of the gla in .cIl1sdfn E it zsinmons and pEn lsa1s- key but the whole bunch side5stepp pea the etai1aEed little darkey Of course Joe eosaI d1lst have licked such men as the Blacksmith and the sailor, but at inc same time he could probably have made any of s'enn step lively Tor a while
 when Kid Lavigne went to England to night Dick Burge for the light weight championship of the world. ln 1S96, he again took on a man several sizes larger than h1mseif: sleck nAc- Al1liffe had repeatedly refused to meet B11rge. owing to a difference over weight, but that didn't bother little Iayigne The British champion was a. full three inches taller than the French Canadian, and Nvelghed a. round 140 pounds while the Kid tlpp- ed the beam at only 138 pounds La vigne accepted all of Burge,s condl- tions without question:
 esAw. come off! That blooTnin' little laddde? Why. you're spoofin ne fawncy would never stand for seein' g. wee bloke like that in the ring with Burge..''
 matchmaker of the National Sport ing Club dn London when I1ayigne introduced by Sam FTtzpatrick the Bidss manager Sam had a lot Of trouble to convince Bettinson that he was not tsspoofin' but in earnest
 When I1avigne. who then looked l like a zewpie, craw1ed through the ropes and faced the towering, bulky Burge, the .'fawncy' could hardly re- strain their mirth. Burge was a 6-to- Il fayorite before then, but when the two were in the ring thes dIspaT1Ly seemed so great that I4aTig71e looked like a 100-to 1 shot. But he romped home! Not that he had any easy time of it. Burge was sure-enough fghter. and not a slap artist and on one or two occasions he rocked La svigne with blows that looked Like s1een 1,,1nches. But the Saginaw Kid I only shook his head and bored 1n-
 It was a rernarkaa9e performance and the ffans of the National Sport ing Club are talking about It yet .Lavigne won by knockout Tn the seventeenth round, and the ancient edifiee rung with cheers for his vaior- The British sports showed themselves good losers, and several or the nople sports pressed real money on 4IsaVlgne-
 Mayor. Mitchell, who has been in vestigating the closing of many of New Yorl's East Side banks by the State Banking Commission, announced that the depositors will be paid in full in short time.
 The Duke of Manchester sailed from New York for England on the White Star liner Adriatic to join the British army, leaving a small army of dtsapp otnteq process servers on the pien