The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-01-21
England Has Had NO Good
Big Boxers in % Years

~ Where are the good big boxers of
England-the modern successors of
those valiant bruisers whose fists were
the most deadly in the world? Gone,
vanished utterly, as extinct as the
ichthyosaurus. Today is the fifty
third birthday of the last. English
champion under prize ring rules, Jem
Smith, who was born in London on
Jan. FL, 1863. And Jern wasn't
much to boast of, for. although big
and burly and weighing $50 pounds,
he stood only 5 feet inches, and his
ring career was not SO glorious as to
give him rank among the real lead
ers Of the game. It was about a
quarter of a century ago that Jena re-
tired from the squared circle, and
since then England has never turned
out big man at all able to cope with.
the heavyweights of America and
Australia. OF good little fellows Eng
land has had an abundance and has
yet.
The decadence of the English
heavyweights began more than half
a century ago. Tom Sayers was a
nliddleweight, although he won the
big title, and so was Jern Mace. Bob
birth and Charlie Mitchell, who held
his own against the mighty John L.,
were niddleweights. Bonn barber
Wells and few others have sought
to restore the faded glories of the
British heavyweight division, but all
have miserably failed.
Jem Smith, the last of the real
heavyweights of England to have any
standing in the pugilistic world, spent
his youth in a London timber yard
where the work was of such a charac-
ter as to give him a fine muscular de-
-velopment. In fact, the lenorrous
muscular development of his arms be-
1eo1 Il ~
him up to such a point that against
a clever opponent he was unable to
land his really terrible punch. His
success as a ugh-and-tumble fighter
attracted the attention of Jack knit
ton, an English fighter known as the
'tENghty-one Tonner,'h who took Jen
under his wing. Later he was taken
up by the veteran Goode. who found
for him several minor matches.
Among his victims were Wolf Bendorf
and Jack Wannop. In 1885 Jen
fought Jack Davis with the raw 'uns
for the championship of England, and
won by a knockout. Jem then went
over to France to fight ALT Greenfield,
who had twice been defeated by John
L. Sullivan in America, but it ended
in free-for-a11 battle. In 1887 he
again visited France. this time to meet
Jake Kilrain for the championship of
the world. They fought log rounds
TO a 0raWs Whon darkness ended the
conflict. In 1889 Smith was defeat
ed by Peter Jackson. the Australian
negro, in London, and fought a draw
with Paddy Slavin, another big Aus-
tralians in Bruges, Belgium, = The
latter fight was a disgracefu1 affair,
owing to the actions of the mob.
After a few unimportant contests.
Jem Smith rounded out his career
twenty years ago by fighting Dan
Creedon the Australian middlewefght,
in London. Dan, who was we'll
known on this side of the Atlantic,
and who had been defeated by F'itz-
simmons and was afterward whipped
by Kid Mccoy, Joe Wolcott, Jack
Root, Marvin Hart Al Weinig and
9th ers, found the big Britisher easy
prey. Tt was a, pathetic finish to the
career of England's last heavyweight
bruiser. Creedon slammed him on
the chin in the first round, and Jem
went down fiat as a, pancake. He
to stall through the first
but in the sedond round the
Australian landed another punch to
the chin that put poor old Jem to
sleep. The referee counted ten, but
Jem didn't stir.