The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1916-06-29
SLAvIN A SOLDIER
Old Ring Master Now Fights
for Great Britain.
He Tells of Time He Battled
With Frank GOtch.

London. June 29-How Frank
Gotch, champion wrestler. mixed
wrestling with boxing against Frank
Slavin, the veteran ringman. in the
Yukon, is a story just told here Tor
the first time
Slavin, who has grown much greyer
than he appeared twenty years ago as
ring favorite, is now in England
with the latest Canadian contingent.
His little mix with Gotch happened
years ago when Gotch. under the name
of Kennedy, was at Dawson in the
matches when everybody wanted to
see prize fights.
Here Slavin staged the story with
Jack Londonish settings-griZzled
miners looking through blue tobacco
smoke at the ring in Dawson's main
emporium. Gotch, failing in wrestling
matches agreed to take SlaviE on for
a ten-round bout.
I'm the first two rounds he came at
me strong" related the old soldier
fighter Il floored him two or three
times. Then in the third round he
lodged in and before 1 knew what was
happening, he gripped me around the
waist and threw me up in the air.
II laughed, the referee laughed, and
in fact we all laughed. The referee
said: DO you claim foul?'
Claimed a Foul.
q said: Well, if l don't I suppose
I'll never be able to come back into the
ring again. so. of course, 1 got the
decision. But the big American farm
er got more money out of it than he
ever got for his wrestling bouts up
there
Slavin just now is delighting British
sporting writers with his reminis-
cences. They flock to the military
camp where Slavin's regiment is wait
ing for the call to France
In Slavin's 81 years he has been a
pioneer in the Australian bush and the
Klondike, as well as a leading prize
ring favorite in England, America,
Australia and Alaska. Before he was
IS he had made $40 in the Aus
tralian gold field.
| He then came to England and closed
| five years of boxing with his defeat of
Peter Jackson.
| Then he went to America and drift
ed into the prize ring limelight by
| knocking out Jack Kilrain in less than
| round. San Francisco was the next
stop.
Those were the days before the big
strike on the Yukon said Slavin,
| but I decided to take the trip there
through British Columbia. When we
arrived in Alaska, my partner and 1
| staked a claim on the Forty Mile riv-
| er and I started to Skagway-60O
miles over the ice behind a dog team
| to get a guarantee for the concession.
Got Concession.
81 got the concession and they gave
me the official mail to carry back to
the government at Yukon. The con-
cession is still working today-in
| fact. it has hydraulic plant capable
of handling $4,000 cubic yards a day.
| Slavin related the cutting of the
White Pass trail from the summit of
White Pass to Lake Bennett in 1897.
| When he returned home his wife had
given him up for dead.
ST made the first map of the White
Pass and the railroad there now does
not leave the route that my party fol-
lowed by more than forty yards at
| any point said Slavin.
Slavin has been a Canadian Justice
| of the peace in late years.
Slavin's only son, Frank Charles
| Slavin (named after Charlie Mitchell)
stands feet, l II inches, like the elder
Slavin. He is a sergeant-major in the
| Yukon company of the Western Scots
and expects to come to Europe and
take a hand in the fighting.