“Gate-Crashing” Champion Crashes With a Dull Thud

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 139, 2 September 1927, Page 10

“Gate-Crashing ” Champion Crashes With a Dull Thud

Claiming to be, America’s “champion gate-crasher,” (i.e., one who gets into an entertainment without paying), James Connelly, of New York, sighed for fresh worlds to conquer, and forthwith decided that he was going across Ito England to see the Walker-Milligan fight free, gratis and for nothing. The enterprising James put it up to |an American newspaper to finance him across the Atlantic. During the voyage, 'he boasted that he had been thrown out of the Dempsey-Carpentier fight 13 times. On an average, said the cheerful Jimmy, he had never been thrown out of a show more than three times before being allowed by the officials to stay. “THEY’LL GET TIRED FIRST” “When doubts were expressed to James on the trip across the Atlantic that he would succeed in his laudable intentions, he cheerfully retorted, **l guess the British bouncers will get tired before I do.” James said a whole lot more—rather too much in fact, bebecause by the time the ship had arrived at Liverpool, the uthorities were fly to his little game. The immigration officials took James to one side and had a pleasant little korero with him. But it was a none too happy “gate-crashing champion” who was politely told at the end of the interview that he could not be permitted to land, as he had not the requisite amount of money to satisfy the powers that be that he was a fit and proper person to set foot on the shores of Old England. The last that was heard of the noble James when the mails left England was that he would remain as the guest of the Cunard Line, in one of whose vessels he made the trip across, until he could persuade someone to go bondsman for him. Failing that, said the English immigration authorities regretfully, they were afraid that Monsieur Connelly would have to postpone his visit until more prosperous times.