The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1915-11-27
Many Famous fighters
 Have Started As Sailors

| Taken as a class, there are no more devoted fight fans than sailors. Jack ashore finds many attractive ways of spending time and money, but what he likes best is fistic rookus. It fol- 1 lows that, given this spirit, Jack often entertains an ambition-to shine as a scrapper, and not a few of the great l est fighters of the past started their fisS1c careers while sailing the bound ing blue. Dozens of boys who are now fighting professionally have serv- ed their bit in the navy, where they won laure1s in the boxing bouts which are amongt the chief joys of life on a battlesl1ip. One of the greatest of the 1atter-day graduates of this stern school is Tom Sharkey, who was born forty@two years ago yesterday, Nov. 6,.1873, in Dundalk Ireland. Tom was 8 husky tar in Uncle Sans navy
 when he began to fight, and when he began his fistfe career ashore he had the enthusiastic support of the whole
 sea fighting force of the United States, Peter. Jackson, the great negro fight CT, was another chap who learned to
 use his hands while sailing the briny.
 Jackson was native of West India,
 and, as his little native island was en- ,tirely surrounded by water, he took naturally to that element. Peter was a. sailor before the mast and a. cook in
 trading ships for years before he drift
 ed to Australia and took up the fight
 game. Joe Walcott, the Bardados Demon was originally a cabin boy. On
 one of his trips he landed in Boston, and, the town looked good to him, he
 decided to, stay. He got a job as a athletic club, where he picked up the art of boxing.
 John Morrissey, the old American
 heavyweight champion, was, a deck hand on the Hudson river boats. Pad dy German was a fireman on steam ships before he took to fighting for a living George LaBIanche, who took the nidd1ewiegTt title from Jack Dempsey, was a United States marine. and dozens of others could be named.
 Tom Sharkeg, after long residing in New York where he conducted a cafe
 near Tanmany Hall. returned this
 year to San Francesca where he started his fighting career. The New
 York authorities put Tom in the Tombs and fined him $500 for keeping
 a disorderly resort. Sharkey did not mind the stay in jail, but giving up
 $500 nearly broke his heart, and he was so peevish when he got fout that
 he decided to go away and leave New
 York to its fate. Tom took to himself another wife last August, when he
 married Miss Florence Manzonie, of Brooklyn. He first met her when he was taken east after beginning his boxing career in California, when the young lady was a pretty miss of four years.
 e Sharkeys began his professional car ger after cleaning up the. scrappers of the navy, about twenty years ago. His first big match was with Joe Choyn- ski, the clever Hebrew, and was stag ed in California. All the tars then in California, including a. brass band from a battleship, were on hand to cheer Thomas on his way, and they bet every dollar they could raise on the sailor. In the first round Choyn- ski landed on the buIl-necked tar and. knocked him through the ropes. Tom lit on a mess of reporters, but was up in a, second seeing red, and climbed back to were the smiling Choynski. was waiting for the referee to raise his hand. A second time Joe knock ed Tom out of the ring, but the only result was to further arouse Sharkey's Irish. After that Choynski grew dis couraged,s and in the eighth round, Tom Knocked him out.