The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-05-02
THE PRIDE OF THE GHETTo
.tKil1 the - Jew!.

stKilI the - JewI"
 The cry was raised in England more than century ago when Dam ieI Mendoza, 'the Star of the East. , a swarthy Hebrew of Spanish descent, triumphed over the best of England's s bruisers and ' displayed before the sporting gentry the most marvellous command of boxing skill and science the world has ever seen.
 The same cry has been raised hun dreds of times by the fight fans on this side of the Atlantic.
 Joe Choynski has had the cry din- ned into his ears by clamorous mobs. Little Abe Atte11 has heard this echo of medieval bigotry and religious ha tired. Leach Cross and Kid Herman and Harry Lewis and Young Joseph and Kid Lewis and Willie Beecher and Battling Levinsky and a host of other Jewish gladiatorsA of the ring have felt the venom of this outworn prejudice. the boxing fans of New York that this cry has never been raised against Benny Leonard, the young Hebrew who recently burst into the Hmelight by outc1assing Freddie Welsh in prac- ticaI1y every round of a ten-round en- gagement. Although a Hebrew, Ben ny is popular with all the fans of the American metropolis, regardless of race and religion.
 Now that the powers of Freddie Welsh are Tagging, it seems certain that he must soon have a successor, and it seems almost equally sure that that successor will be a Jew The modern lightweight Ii championship has been held by an Irishman, a French Canadian,} a Swiss, a negro, a Dane, two German-Americans and a Welsh man. Now it is the turn of the He brews, for in Benny Leonard and Charlie White the Hebrews have two lightweight g1adiatofs either one of whom could almost certainly take the title in a battle over the twenty-round route. White is an English Hebrew, a native of Liverpool, While Benny Leonard was born in New York just twenty years ago this month
 Leonard, who has succeeded Leach Cross the pride of New York's Ghetto, made his mundane debut in a tenement in downtown New York, and although he now resides in that less congested district known as Harlem, he is a product of the Ghetto His real name is Benjamin Leirner, but, like nearly all Hebrew fighters, he changed his moniker when he entered the ring.
 The sudden rise of Leonard to fame and comparative fortune has been highly romantic. It was not accom- p1ished without long preparation, however, when Benny boxed the kids of the neighborhood and developed his muscles and stamina and skill. The precipitate Towering came only after a long continued preparation of the soil
 The IitIe Jew was about ten years old when he first donned the gloves. His brothers, Willie and Charlie, were also greatly interested in boxing, and Charlie is now a clever protest onal while Willie trains his ScrapDing brothers and acts as their second. The lads had an uncle who was a, great fight fan, and who knew quite a bit about the game. and he gave them their first boxing 1ess9ns. A ring was marked off in the back yard, and chums spent most of their leisure hours, swatting each other.
 One day a number of men of the neighborhood who had heard of this back yard boxing club came around while the lads were pumme1ing each other, and offered to raise a purse if A couple of them would give them real bout. Benny and one of his chums, Joe F7ogarty, consented to stage a six-round battle if sufficient inducements were offered. A purse of fifty cents was quickly raised, and it was agreed that the winner get thir- ty cents and the loser twenty cents. The bout didn't go the full route, for in the fourth round Benny put over a WalIop that caused Joe to decide that he only needed twenty cents, anyway.
 It was while the Leimer clan were living in the Bronx that Benny be- came acquainted with Billy Gibson, the proprietor of the Fairmount Ath- Ietic club, and now Benny's manager. The little Jew was crazy about boxing, but he didn't have the price of admis- sion to the F7airmount shows, so with