BOXING

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 383, 7 May 1910, Page 3

BOXING

(By ' Uppereut.") THE WORLD'S CHAMPIONSHIP. A New York cable received yesterday report> that a deadlock has occurred between Johnson and Jeffries, each objecting to the other's nomination of a referee.

The Jeffries-Johnson light will take place in the infield of Emeryville racetrack, across the bay from San Francisco, writes the Sydney Referee's special American commissioner.

The light will surely be witnessed hy sporting delegations from all over the world, if one-tenth even of the thing* that are primed are true. The latest is that Lord Jioscbery is coming from England with a big ciowd, and it seems to me that Germany and Australia are the only sections that have not been heard from yet. Incidentally, many of the well-to-do patrons of pugilism opined that charging one hundred for a choice location would iprove a mistake, and there was so much unfavorable criticism of tlie prices for admission at tirst suggested that Gleason and liickard thought it all over, and decided to change tlieir figures. Now it has 'been announced that the ticket* will vost all the way from live dollars to fifty, and the news has 'been received with glee.

Suine of the estimates formed as to the size of the Johnson-Jeffries gate are startling. When a lew months ago Gleason'offered 101,000 dollars for the fight, some of the ,ohi-time promoters insisted that Tex would never get his money baek. Now these same tellowg are wishing they ihad tried harder to land the attraction. Coffroth, for one, believes the light will draw 200,000 dollars, whereas, -at ... .tiding time, he did not think halt' thait amount would be realised.

But 2<K),otio dollars is only a modest guess, as guesses go. I heard a San Francisco Jawyer, who has been u fight patron for years, give his opinion the other day that Jeffries and Johnson would draw 250,000 dollaTs, and I have heard that still others have prophesied that half a million dollars' worth of tVk.-ts would be sold. The one thing made clear by these forecasts is that the whole country is intensely interested over the July ring event. People who have never talked fisWt before are talking it now, and I am wondering what kind of a ferment the public will be in iwhen Independence Day moves round. As to the size of the gate, I should think that if it reaches 200,000 it will be as high as Jt will go. At that, of course, it would break all records.

Jeffries will go into camp on April I. He has just returned to Los Angeles from a hunting trip in the Tehacaphi Mountains, and he was rather disappointed because he did not bowl over a bear or two. At present he makes his headquarters at his Burbank ranch, a few miles from Los Angeles, and indulges in what might be called practical training—that is, he is all the time sawing and chopping blue-gum logs into suitable lengths for the kitchen stove, and performing other tasks which generally fall to the lot of the hired man.

About May 1 Frank Gotoh, the champion wrestler, will join Jeffries, and big Jim's crew will be strengthened by the addition of extra boxing partners and masseurs. Jiin Corbett, according to arrangement, is to put in an appearance at Rowardenman thirty days before July 4. Just what Corbett hopes to do for the big fellow is not very clear, but

idea seems to be that the two Jims will indulge >in extra fast sparring work.

Somehow Jack John-on has not been regaling the public with his .rdinary output fit' light gull'. He has been comparatively silent ever since Jeffries Arrived home several weeks ago, and. in consequence, the preliminary nrattie has had a onesided twang. Johnson, it appears, is to stand trial in New York within the next few days for an assault on an .aUentii;it<-d )ie<rro uameu Norman Pindar, and it may be that apprehension of the f:ito, or sentence, or fine, that is in store for him has caused Jack to become tongue-tied. The story goes that he assaulted Pindar violently necause I'indar refused to open wine for him. Vlu'ii requested to purchase some of the "imprisoned laughter," Pimiar said, with a curl of his lip, that he remembered .the time when Johnson was glad to blow the foam from a bucket of beer. Thereupon Johnson fell upon Pindar and kicked and mauled him.

Some of the alarmists are saying that Johnson is in for a year in gaol, but Jack, it is said, laughs at the notion. He is making bets thai he will ;be acquitted, but 1 doubt if he will get otf scot free. If he is to be .imprisoned at all it may be that his incarceration will interfere with Rieknrd and Gleason's plans for having the ,fight take place on July 4. It 9eems to me, however, that what threatens the big event more than the Pindar case is Johnson's reckless method of automobiling. Only the other day news arrived that Jack and a party had ibeen capsized in a snowdrift while *buzz-waggoning along the road /from Milwaukee to Chicago. Then followed another story to the effect that a Chicago policeman iwas looking for Jack in order to force him to answer to a chanre of reckless driving and assault. This particular policeman says ihat he jumned on the footiboard of Johnson's caT while the latter was driving tat breakneck speed, and that Johnson struck him and pushed him off.

These are merely samples of the tiling* charged up to Johnson in connection with violations of the law acainst speeding. .He is a crazy taulomohilist, and unless the fight promoters can induce liiin to forego the picture of his motor-car until after the dk'hi, there is a feeling that Johnson will be either killed in a wreck or placed in durance vile for killing somebody else. At this end of .the line, Johnson's colored friends profess to be uneasy, over his automobile mishaps. If he remains sound in body and limb until he reaches here to (begin training, a bunch of influential negroes, will try and prevail upon him toiput his car away until he has settled his affair wRh Jeffries. The National Sporting Club, London, offered £ISOO for the Freddie WelshPack MoFarland match, and Mountain Ash (Wales) bid £2«00.