New Britain herald., 1915-01-02
WHERE, OH WHERE, IS
 THE RUBE CIRCUIT ?
IL is Where You Don't Happen
 tO liVl..-..'oSS?

l Here IS a prODlem TOT the WlSe
 men of the Hot Stove circuit to dis l cuss:
 1 What is 'rube?''
 R. Edgren, the sporting editor of l the New York Evening World in commenting on the comparatively
 recent battle CD between Saml Me-
 Vey and Battling Jim Johnson, hinted that perhaps those gentlemen did not quite extend themselves to the limit By remaining calm and unimpasson-
 ed, Edgren suggests, McVey ''sa red
 Johnson for return engagements at
 Philadelphia, Pittsburg, Boston and
 Milwaukee," and adds that "Jean-
 cite and Langford have both played
 Johnson off the boards on the Rube
 Circuit.''
 Here we have the Rube circuit
 defined by an eminent sporting au- thority as including the we'll known
 and populous metropolii of Pennsyl-
 vania. Massachusetts and Wisconsin. or course, such an allegation has no foundation of fact. To our personal 1 knowledge, Bob has travelled as far west as San Francisco, and he knows l as we'll as anybody that there are no l 1 ceptance of the term, in the cities he 1 names than in Gotham. Proba bly, l less In the matter of the boxing 1 game. f'rinstance. Bob will have to admit that the wise sports of New York are "stung' quite as often as l the fans of what he calls the Rube circuit"
 Defining the word "rube," as used in our best sporting circles, is diffi- cult proposition. Philadelphia, Pitts burg and Boston, while indignantly denying that they harbor any "rubes, ' will cheerfully admit that Milwaukee i., probably full of them. But it wouldn't be healthful to suggest any such thought to a Milwaukee sport Milwaukee will pass the buck to Oskosh, but if you continue to pur- sue the investigation down to the tiniest backwoods village you will never find a self confessed "rube' community.
 We are also told that the Feds are doomed to failure because they have, in part, a "rube circuit" The Rochester Times sport scribe recent ]y alleged that the Federal league can never be given major standing with towns like Buffalo, Baltimore, Indianapolis and Kansas City in the circuit.''
 But why? Baltimore is the seventh city in population in the United States, and the census taker counted more human noses within it's limits than he found in four other cities whch have long been represented in the old majors. Buffalo classes in size fairly we'll with Pittsburg and Detroit, and it is larger than Cincin- l nati and Washington. Kansas City counting that part of it on the Kansas side of the line, is as large as Wash lngton. Indianapolis is somewhat smaller than any city in the old
 leagues, but is far from being hope lessly outclassed
 The Feds may go on the rocks from any one of various reasons, but not
 because it is a "rube" circuit The search of Diogenes for an honest man was no more hopeless than the quest for a "rube" town
 Yet every big city, New York in cluded, has a large percentage of these credulOus persons-such per sens, Tor instance. as those Bob Ed gren described as giving up their coin tG see the best imitation of 8 fake
 ever slipped to the palpitating popu-
 lace of this burg at from $1 to s7 a
 seat
 The Brutality" of Boxing
 Tho California promoters who are threatening to attack the constitution ality of the anti iboxing law had bet ter choose some other dish Some inqu1sitive persons might ask about the conStitutionality of the law that permitted the persons who were in at the death of Bull Young and Battling Reddy to get away un- punished
 This brain throb from Beatty in the New York Evening Mail.
 Yeh. But maybe it is the same law that prevents the presidents and fa culty members of some of the great est American universities from spend- ing their time behind the bars Per haps it is the same identical statute that enables our baseball magnates to be ranked as respectable gentlemen instead of convicts. Possibly it is the law of human nature which enacts that a man who engages in any sort of activity customary among humans has to take his chances. There is a chance that it is the law of common sense which says that man should refrain from going to bed because many people die in 'em. So many people die in bed that the re- formers really ought to pass a law against the deadly contra ptions.
 When the proposed law against boxing was being agitated in Califor-