FISTIC REWARDS

Hokitika Guardian, 9 April 1929, Page 8

FISTIC REWARDS

The news that Tom Hconey received £;}'()!) for ..‘is‘last light caused M.A.'i. to ponder awhile upon the rewards which are lavished upon modern fistn lie roes and those which were .gleaned so hardly by their predecessors. The earnings of the Gisborne fighter cannot compart* with those ol Carpontior. Dempsey or Tunncy, hut they appear enormous when one remembers: that deni Mace fought one of his greatest battles for a purse of 50 guineas, and that the classic hare-list .struggle between Sayers and Hcenan produced little more Jor either. Joseph I unr.cv has evidently had enough of the game which lilt'd him from a shipping clerkship to great wealth and an alliance with the Carnegie millions. “Fm through with the fight game. I shall never go hack to the ring.” 1 untiey it is estimated, has earned something like £51)0,000 since lie knocked out Bob Fierce in the second round at Paris in 191!). The gentlemanly marine's marriage will open society's doors for the first time to a professional knight of tbe padded mittens. Will the idol of Greenwich Village find in the leisure!} life upon which lie is embarking the answer to his hopes, secretly nurtured since the d tv, so lew years ago. when lie walked, jobless, along the streets of Newark? Or will Gene, like some of liis predecessors—Sullivan. Corbett. Jeffries and Willard—after the lapse of it year or two. begin to hour a still, small voice coaxing him back’’ If such a time .should come, shall he have the will to stifle the urge, as did MeAuliffe and Leonard, or will lie, like Jeffries and Corbett, return to hear the dismal decimals tolled over his prostrate form, the kfiell for a king who has passed ton figurative pickets fencing in Ambition’s little grave?—Auckland Star.