CHAMPIONS LITTLE JOKE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 995, 23 May 1911, Page 4

CHAMPIONS LITTLE JOKE.

Sydney Sun last week published the ’ following telegrams from America : —Jack Johnson has got his smile back ! When be came out of the county gaol, in which he had been incarcerated for ten days for exceeding the speed-limit in his motor car, a crowd of people were waiting outside the gales, and Johnson, in a speech, announced that he would have a surprise lor them in the course of a day or two. Next day the surprise materialised. In broad daylight, but with all lamps burning, the big negro drove through the town in a fine new 90-h.p. Panbard car, that he had specially bought for the occasion. The patrolmen had word of his visit, and were out watching lor him, several ‘ ‘ traps ’ ’ having been prepared. But Johnson has been bitten too many times, and yesterday he got back on his persecutors.

Driving as slowly as he possibly could, almost at crawling pace, and preceded by a man carrying a red flag, the automobile proceeded through the main street, Johnson meanwhile tooting the horn with great glee and ringing a big bell. All the people were out lining the wayside, and there were shrieks of laughter at the champion’s practical joke, and the discomfiture of the police. Afterwards Johnson stated that he had got the big car for the particular benefit of the police around that part. “It can go faster than this,” he said, guffawing hugely, “and next lime I’ll go so fast that they'll hardly see me.” Johnson had been telling some of his gaol experiences in the newspapers. “The crowning indignity,” he says, “ was when he was put to clean out the stables and groom fourteen horses used by the mounted patrolmen.” He adds that California has lost all charms for him, and that he will make haste to Philadelphia, where he will try half a dozen rounds with Jack O’Brien. “ But I feel so palsied as a result of the prison treatment,” says the fighting black, “ that I shall not be surprised if he turns the tables. Johnson has received a tempt ing offer to make an aeroplane flight at the forthcoming aviation meeting at Kansas City. The figure is said to be somewhere in the neighbourhood of 50odoI. Mr Glen Curtis, the wellknown airman, says he is under contract to teach Johnson the art of flying. “He’sa pretty big lump of a man,” says the teacher, “but I think I can break him in.”