Evening star., 1939-05-28
Load Of Coin Scooped
By Pug's Big Hand
Drained Till
Eceentricities Recalled
BY Mementos Of Fighter
Thut HoIIett Collects
BY JOHN SELBY,
Associated Press Arts Editor.

BOSTON, May 27.-John L. Sulli-
vans Venus Arising From the
Foam" has been found, thinks Rich
ard Hallet. This is the work of bar
room art which used to hang over
Sullivan's Washington street bar
here and caused the once-great pug
to declare that his Venus was the
only good thing to come out of
water.
And the bar is the one which
Sullivan lost, declares Hallet, be-
cause the old man had an odd habit
of dropping into the place around
sunset, sticking his quite large hand
into the till and abstracting all the
silver it contained.
This, Sullivan would carry to the
front door, where he would give it a
fling and then laugh great, belly
laughs at the newsboys as they
scrambled for it.
Hallet has been looking for Sulli-
van mementos for long while and
has quite store. Hallet is a
writer nowadays, but he, little like
John L., has had highly colored
career. He met the old warrior, by
the way, when Sullivan was vegetat-
ing on his Cape Cod farm, and
Hallet was a 19-year- police
man" In an amusement park at
nearby Mayf1ower Grove.
Not Much of a Policeman.
John L. weighed 300 pounds then
and walked ponderously. He stopped
Hallet one day as the then skinny
d policeman was walking his beat-the
idea of the job was to get money to
help finance course at Harvard.
"Ho," said Sullivan, grabbing Hal
let's lean arm. you're a hell Of a
policeman" He felt the scant BIZ
ceps. Like an oyster on a stick" !"
the old man roared, and passed
along.
Hallet remembers also that Sulli-
van used to like to go to neigh
boring church. But he wouldn't sit
down; he walked to and fro across
the back of the church all through
the service and made terrific rack
ct about it.
Mallet, whose autobiography, "The
Rolling World" is one of the best
adventure yarns of recent years,
soon left the cape and Harvard,
too, and started adventuring on his
own. He has been a rabbiter, a
swagran and a stone-breaker in
Australia, marine fireman in the
Indian Ocean, a timber-cruis in
Canada. gold prospector in Ari-
zona, watch officer on horse ship
and many more things.
Stories Brought Relics.
But he never has been able to
down his interest in the legendary
fighter who used to drive nails with
his fist, pull them with his teeth,
and Git is allegeO play tiddle-de-
winks with man-hole covers. And
one day he got hold of the famous
plaster cast of Sullivan's right arm.
He started mining the Sullivan
legend for magazine stories, and
wrote focks of these Nearly every
story turned up a Sullivan relic
people sent him the gold-headed
cane the Prince Of Wales gave the
old man, and such things as letter
from Theodore Roosevelt thanking
Sullivan for gold-mounted rabbit s
foot which Roosevelt carried on his
famous African hunting trip.
Hallet has letters, bits of me-
morabilia of all sorts, photos, and
from some of Sullivan's old friends
such as his trainer, Tom Coffey,
the worlds best list of Sullivan
stories. But he still does not have
John LIS plug hat or the statue
that Boston sculptor named John
Donoghue modelled.
Still Hunting Statue.
He got Venus" from P. E. Har-
rison of Dover, N. H., but Harrison
has no word of the famous statue,
which has figured in some semi
fiction by Hallet, and a book or two.
All Hallet knows is that the statue
was cast In bronze and is alive
enough to start rumors which reach
Hallet.
Meanwhile he has an idea. He
thinks Massachusetts, could do worse
than replace the sacred Goldfish in
its Statehouse with the cast of Svl-
livan's right arm, which. he thinks,
means more to the State than any
fish, even the cod.
But Hallet lives In Booth Bay
Harbor, Me, and may not have
the best interest of Massachusetts
at heart.