The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1915-12-27
Jimmy Barry Was a Star
 Among the Little Boxers

The most valuable goods often come in small packages. and this is certainly true of boxers. Although the bantafnweight division is not what it used to be. yet the fact re- m .ins that the little fellows of today u. 1al1y give better exhibitions of true fighting spirit than the larger men. And it always has been SO. When Lynch, the first of the little scrap pers to gain fame in America, went oyer to EnGIand nearly sixty years ago and fought George Holden, Dan Harrington and Sam Finighty under London rules with bare fists, he dis played the tigerfsh ferocity which has since been a lcharacter1stic of the Snajority of the bantams. Lynch was SAlled a feakherweight, but he fought at 1I2 poands. In fact, all the seatferweights up to the time Ike Weir and Tommy Warren fought for the title in Minneapolis in 1887. at 117 pounds, were what are now call ed bantamweig ghts while the limit of the latter division was 1O5 pounds. [
 Of the modern bantamweights, be- ginning with George Dixon quarter of century ago. perhaps the pest example of the fighting spirit which auimates the breasts of the little fel- |, lows was afforded by Jimmy Barry, of Chicago New Workers will deny this, and will award the palm to Terry McGovern, who became king
 
 tired but if Terrible Terry could have fought the Windy City boy when both were at their best 1t IS not at all certain that the Brookiyn1te would have triumphed- Certainly the result would have been the most cy- cIonic mill in ring history
 It will be just seventeen years next Wednesday since Jimmy Barry made his last appearance oin the squared circle, which was at Davenport, Iowa,
 ] oC O nat Barry fought Casper Leon, the game little Sicilian, for twenty rounds to a draw Barry became the acknowl- edged king of the bantams in 1SS4' when he whipped Leon in tWenty- sixht, rounds at Lamont, ILL After fhe Davenport session Barry decided to quit while the quitting was good, and announced his retirement from the ring.
 Barry was native of Chicago, where he was born in, 1s7o- Inci- dentalIy, three other claimants of the hantamweight. title, Harry Harris Harry Forbes and Johnny Coulon, were Windy. City boys. In one or Eden PhilIpotts' novels an orphan bow. when asked his name, replied that it was Tiger and explained that it was because he was so fferceY Early in his career Barry was dubbed Tiger for exactly the same reason. He was graduate or MC4Turn'S place, a 1eNOI4LG 1CSO1C VI the boxers in the days when Chicago was on the pug1listic map. At Me SFzurn's a fight was a fight, and not dancing lesson, and in that hard school Barry became a ravening tiger, with all the characteristics of strip ed jungle feline which had been fed on raw meat. Harry Gilmore. who claimed the lightweight title until he was whipped by Jack McAuHffe in 1887, took Jimmy under his pinions and gave him the finishing touches in boxing science and. ring generalship- Barry usually confined his ferocity to bnsiness hours and was anaiable and d good fellow immediately a fight was over, but ther was one notable ex- ceptfon A boxer he had licked re- fused to shake hands and the en- ragged Jimmy. aroused by this defi- ancel of professional etiquette, sail ed into him with the raw ,uns, until the fellow was glad enough to shake the victor paw. Barry went through his entire career without taking a beating, and retired unde- feated, although Harry Harris gave him a close call. and several others, held him to draws