32

A BRIEF LEGAL HISTORY O F PRIZE FIGHTING

IN NINETEENTH CENTURY AhERICA

JACK ANDERSON
Queens Unicersip, Belfast

In the decade immediately prior to the Civil 1Sar bare-fisted prize fighting
emerged as a popular if illicit spectator sport in the United States. The sport
travelled with and thrived amongst the predominantly Irish immigrant
underclass of cities such as New York, Boston, Philadelphia and New Orleans.
A mere generation later prize fighting had been comprehensively usurped by
boxing with gloves, as tlie United States broadly mirrored a pattern first
established in Britain. This paper will review the legal history of the sport in
the United States during the period. Significant use will be made of
contemporary newspaper reports and transcripts of reported court judgments.
hfany parallels with the evolution of the sport in Britain will be drawn,
however, tlie paper will also suggest that in uniquely American terms John L.
Sullivan was the key transitional figure in the legal and general history of the
sport.
Sullivan, whose reign is generally held to mark the beginning of the modern
heavyweight championship, bridged the gap between the bare-fisted prize
fight and the gloved bout. He popularised and commercialised the sport to his
own and future boxers’ exploitation. \\‘it11 Sullivan the sport moved from
secluded groves to illuminated arenas, from ‘The Strong Boy’ to ‘Gentleman
Jim’, from the prize figliter to the boxer. Nevertheless, this view - this attempt
-
to encapsulate the sport in an individual oversimplifies the changes that
occurred in the sport during the period. By the end of the nineteenth century
organisations such as the Olympic Clubs of San Francisco and New Orleans
were putting in place the structures upon which the future of the sport was to
be built. These structures, wherein all sections of society could participate and
enjoy the sport, were necessary because Sullivan’s profession, the sport of
prize fighting, had long been a criminal offence in many states within the
Union.
In sum, this paper suggests that the criminal law, as it had also effected in
Britain, sloivly harassed the raw traditions of the American prize fight into the
sanitised modernity of the boxing ring.’

I This paper may be read in conjunctionwith Jack Anderson, ‘Pugilistic Prosecutions: Prize
Fighting and the Courts in Nineteenth Century Britain’, SprtsHUlorian,21 (2) (ZOOI), pp.35-
53.

Slort in Ilufog,1’01.2-1, No. I (Summer ZOOi), pp. 32-62.0 British Society ofSporrs Himr)..
 I’RIZE FIGHTING IN NINETEENTII CENTURY AhlERICA 33

I. The Early Years

Though earlier evidence of so-called ‘slave bouts’ occurring in some of the
southern states exists, most commentators agree that it was not until the first
quarter of the nineteenth century that Americans 11ecame aware of the fact
that prize fights were taking place in their country.2 Two of the most
celebrated fights of the 1820s were contested by Ned Harnmond, a Dubliner,
and George Kensett, a Liverpudlian. These contests contained all the
characteristics of the typical prize fight of the era including ineffective police
intervention, the desperate search for a secluded place in which to hold the
bout, heavy gambling and a controversial outcome.
The first fight between Hammond and Kensett was scheduled to take place
on Coney Island, ”I’ but the participants, their seconds and the spectators
were chased away at bayonet point by infantry under the sheriff of Kings
County. Unperturbed, the fight reconvened at Jamaica, Queens. During the
twenty seventh round Hamrnond was adjudged to have thrown a foul blow
and \\*as disqualified much to the relief of the weakening Englishman and his
anxious backers. Two years later in a rematch the roles were reversed with
Kensett throwing the foul blow and a clearly groggy Hammond being carted
victoriously from the ring.3
The Anglo-Irish nature of these bouts is noteworthy with the immigrant
underclass of those countries - then flowing into the United States in the
aftermath of the 1812 war and later the Irish Famine - replicating the prize
fighting enmity of the Old \\’orld in that of the New. Moreover, Anglo-Irish
prize fighters had quickly realised that the legal climate in their respective
jurisdictions was becoming rather more hostile to their profession. In contrast,
the authorities in the United States were Iess confrontational while the
potential stakes or purses available on that side of the Atlantic were much
more attractive than anything that was on oITer in Britain at that time.4
Typical of these itinerant boxers was James ‘Deaf Un’ Burke, who was the
English champion for much of the 1830s. Burke arrived in the United States
in 1836 and within t\\-elve months had fought two high profile encounters
with contrasting outcomes. On 9 hfay 1837 Burke fought Iocal favourite Sam

* Elliot Gorn, ‘Gouge and Bite, Pull Hair and Scratch: T h e Social Significance of Fighting in the
Soutliern Uackcountry’,Amniran Ilisforkaf Rniau, 90 (1985), pp.18-43; Elliot Gorn, 77uMan~drt
bare inurkleprize-j~htingindmnira Qthaca, 1989), pp.34-5; Randy Roberts, ‘Eighteenth Century
Boxing’,Joumaf OfSporl Ifisfog,4 (1977), pp.246-59; D a i d Il’iggins, ‘Good Times on the Old
Plantation: Popular Kecreations of the Black Slave in Antebellum South, 1820-1860’,Journal~
Skort Hisfog,4 (1977), pp.260-8t.
3 Anon., TheAmrrican Futiana (”v York, 1860), pp.6-7. llu Amckan Fuhm, which claimed to be
a defiriirive history of the early American prize ring, \\asfirst published in 1819, enlarged in 1860
and a&i in 1873.
4 The levels ofcorruption in the sport in Britain at the time were such that popular support had
largely dissipated; see Anderson, ‘Pugilistic Prosecutions’, pp.36-7.
34 JACK WDERSON

O’Rourke in New Orleans. At that time New Orleans had a large Irish
working class population and a small statute book.5 The combination ensured
that the light ended prematurely in the third round when Burke, probably in
self defence, lashed out at one of O’Rourke’s seconds, prompting and all out
riot, which later escalated to the extent that the hlayor had to call upon the
hlilitia.6 On 21 August of that same year Burke fought John O’Connell in a
much more regulated and sedate affair held on Hart’s Island, Long Island
Sound, IW. Contemporary reports of the occasion note not only the members
of the ‘hncy’ who paid and wagered considerable amounts on the bout but
also the fact that the fight itself was a dull affair and heavily one-sided in
favour of Burke.7
Overall, a review of the archives of 7 i i e r h r i c n n Fistinna demonstrates that
during this period prize fights were much more likely to end in a general
unresolved melee, as the O’Rourke figlit did.8 In this, urban working class
neighbourlioods based on ethnic lines took the opportunity to riot either
against each other or the city authorities.3 It is suggested that for many Irish-
Americans prize fighting replaced the ‘faction-fight’ of home.10 Despite this
relatively small ethnic base, despite the antipathy of the press cvcn the
sporting press towards the sport, prize fighting’s popularity increased in the
United States throughout the 1850s.11 In a sense the sport’s physicality, its
competitiveness even its rawness sat comfortably with the values of a nation
then barely half a century old.12 Presently, the United States would develop its
own champions of the ring and no longer depended on the import of fighters.
In short, America’s emerging urban population would soon provide plenty of
contenders beginning with Irish-born James Ambrose ‘Sankee’ Sullivan.

11. Yankee Sullivan

The life of Yankee Sullivan reveals much about the conventions and persons
that operated in the bare knuckle prize fighting scene of the period they \\-ere -

Earl Niehaus, %Irish inn’m Orltuns, 1810-1860 (Baton Rouge, 1965), passim.
6 Ibid, pp.53-60.
A report of the fight can be found in IbkMorning Herald, 21 August 1837.
%Amnicrm Fistha, (1860), pp.7-8. See also the account of a not in New York emanating from
a prize fight in John Betts,Amoica’sSporfiigIfmhge, 1850-1950(Reading, Mass., 1374), p.38.
9 Corn, me dlanbilrt, pp.46-7.
Patrick ODonnell, 7 l c Iirh Facfion Kghttrs oJthchintlpenfh Centup (Dublin, 1975), passim.
I ’ Examples ofanti-prize fighting rhetoric in the sporting press of the era are noted inJohn Betts,
‘SportingJournalism in Nineteenth Century America’, Amcricun Qgurtcrb, 5 (1%3), p.4 t and Frank
hlott, A Ihdog ofiimckun Jfageines: 17.11-1850we\v York, 1930), p.482.
I * John Betts, ‘The Technological Revolution and the Rise of Sport, 1850-1900’, ,\Ii.risn’ppi IkUq
Hktoriraf hh,40 (1%3), pp.23 1-56 andJennie IIolliman, Amm‘can Sportr, 1785-1835 (Durham,
193 I), passim.
 PRIZE FIGHTING IN NINETEENTH CENTURY AhIERICA 35

criminal in character.13 Sullivan was born in Bandon, Co. Cork, Ireland on 12

April 1813. In his teens he left for Li\wpool, England where he began his ring
career before being deported to Australia for larceny in 1837. In the 1840s he
cndcd up running a saloon bar in the Boivery on Lower Manhattan from
where he initiated the most lucrative part of his fighting career. O n 7
September 1841, in Philadelphia, he fought and defeated an Englishman,
Vincent Hammond, for a stake of one hundred dollars. O n 24 November
1842 lie defeated native born Tom Secor in New York and eight months
later, Sullivan defeated \\’illiam Bell, another Englishman, for a stake of three
hundred dollars.’; Such was Sullivan’s S U C C ~ S Sthat Vie American F’istiuna
rcported that a search had hegun ‘to find a man capable of holding up the
honour of the Stars and Stripes against the encroacliments of tlie Green Flag
of the Emerald Isle’.l5
Two weeks after the Bell fight Sullivan had his first serious brush with the
criminal law’s concerns regarding prize fighting. Sullivan was thc bottle
holder for Cliristopher Lilly in a bout against Thomas AIcCoy. The fight was
held near the hamlet of Hastings located in the Hudson Valley, NY. Even by
thc standards of the day, the fight was a brutal one lasting two-hours and forty
minutes and consisting of 119 rounds. McCoy started well but faded rapidly
and rcccived a terrible beating to the extent that at one stage Sullivan asked
hIcCoy’s corner to concede. They refused and the fight ended with hIcCoy’s
death, which a subsequent coroner’s report attributed to the lighter choking
on his own blood. Though Lilly fled to Canada, a grand jury indicted the
promoters, ring keepers, including Sullivan, on charges ranging from I-iot to
manslaughter. 16
The trial was held under the local jurisdiction of \\’estchester County and
causcd a sensation in the nearby city of New York with many of that city’s
newspaper printing extra editions devoted exclusively to co\.erage of the
trial.17 Most of the accused were fined, though Sullivan, with eyewitness
testimony noting the central role that he played in the promotion and
adniinistration of the bout, received an exemplary sentence of two years
imprisonmcnt.18 In directing the jury the presiding judge, a Mister Justice
Ruggles, lefi tlie court in no doubt as to liis view regarding the legality of a
prize fight. Tlie language used by Ruggles resonates with that used in the

13 On the life and times of Yankee Sullivan see Nat Fleischer, 7 H c i h 1 ~ p ~ i g h r B u ~Chnmpionship:
ing
an informal hislov ofhmy~t+t boxhgjom 1719 to Lhcprrsrnt d y (New York, 19i9), ~VillianiHarding,
e (Net. \‘ark, 1881) and AlexanderJohnson, Tm and &L!- &
llu Champiom ofthe A m m c a n p ~ ting
compkfcsfov @heprize ting indmnira (New York, 1927).
14 7HeAmcninn fihhna, (1860),pp.I0-13.
15 hid., p.22.
j6 Thomas AIcDade, ‘Death in the Afternoon’, HiskhshHistorian, 46 (1970), pp.1-12.
I7 For example the extra edition to 77i~nMl>rk,\fomingHerald, 28 November 1842.
I* AIcDade, ‘Death in the Afternoon’, p.6.
36 JACK Ah’LIERSON

courts in Britain at that time and the judgment provides an interesting social
and legal commentary on the sport:

A prize fight brings together a vast concourse of people; and I believe

it is not speaking improperly of such assemblages, to say that the
gamblers, and the bullies, and the swearers, and the blacklegs, and
the pickpockets, and the thieves, and the burglars are there. It tirings
together a large assemblage of the idle, disorderly, vicious, dissolute
-
people - people who live hy violence people who live by crime -
their tastes run that way, and though some respectable people were
there ...y ou can readily perceive the influences which such
assemblages are likely to exercise on the public peace, and morals
and taste; and you can therefore estimate correctly the propriety and
necessity of that law which fortiids their existence.19

\\’ithin six months Sullivan had received a gubernatorial pardon, yet,

somewhat chastened by the RlcCoy experience he thereafter remained out
the New York ring. Sullivan did not, however, lack opponents and the
Irishman’s rivalry with Tom Hyer and later John Rlorrissey, ensured that
prize fighting, like foot racing, baseball and horse racing, was able to capitalise
on the growing ability of all classes to consume leisure related activities.20
Sullivan’s rivalry was also breathlessly reported by a growing sporting press,
which utilised advances in telegraph technology to keep its readcrship in the
burgeoning urban markets of the East Coast up to date with the latest
matches and announcements.‘’

111. Sullivan and the Men of Troy

The build up to the Sullivan’s next major fight, with Tom Hyer, would do
justice to any modem day boxing promotion. It began with Hyer, a supporter
of ‘Know-Nothing’ nativism, publicly insulting the Irish-born Sullivan. Later,
the formal signing of the articles of agreement between the fighters was a
tumultuous, and despite its illegality, a very public occasion. In turn, it led to
an intense six month build up during which both lighters made much of their
chaste and abstemious training regimes.22 The fight was first set to take place
on Poole’s Island in Chesapeake Bay in early 1849. The venue in question

19 This excerpt from the judgment was reported in ‘ T ~ I C Ibrk J ~ JMorniig Ilerald, 28 Koveniber
1842.
20 Gorn, ?At ,\fanb Art, p. 107 and Benjamin Rader, Americun Sporkjorn the qy o j f k g n m e s lo the age
CJttlnistd spork (Englewood Cliffs, NJ., 1983), passim.
zL See generally John Betts, ‘SportingJournalism’, 1%here he notes the role that putilicaiionr such
as 17re Spirit oJthc T i c s , T h c ~ V h1% Ci$per and later, TheJYa\itrionalI’olirc
Cedtt played in the
promotion of the sport.
i%?~mtricanFuliana, (18+9),pp.1-30.
 I’RIZE FIGIITING IN NINETEENTII CENTURY MIERICA 37

had two advantages. Supporters could easily access it on the ferry from
Baltimore and the jurisdiction of the island was a matter of dispute between
the federal government and tlie hfaryland authorities. In essence, the venue
was, in the eyes of the law, a geographical loophole. Nevertheless, the
authorities did attempt to stop the fight taking place and a posse managed to
arrest tlie fighters’ seconds. However, the fighters and the remaining
supporters evaded capture when the authorities’ ship, the Boston, ran
aground.23
The fight eventually took place at Still Pond Heights, Maryland on 7
February 1849 for the unprecedented stake of S10,OOO. As with so many
subsequent sporting events, the occasion did not live up to the build up and
Sullivan, four inches smaller and three stone lighter than his opponent, was
easily bcnten within twenty minutes. Hyer’s subsequent career had three
characteristics typical of the day. First, he refused to enter tlie prize ring evFr
again by wisely outstaking his rivals thus protecting his reputation. Hyer
would fight for no less that then thousand dollars. Secondly, he became
affiliated to a political party, in this case the Republicans, who used his
popularity and strength as an infamous ‘vote-enforcer’. Finally, he died
young, in 1864, his body crippled by old injuries and ravaged by drink.24
In Hyer’s absence Sullivan remained the defucfo champion. In that capacity
Sullivan was challenged by another Irish born immigrant, John hIorrissey, in
1053. On 12 October of that year Sullivan and hlorrissey met at Boston
Corners, a tiny hamlet one hundred miles north of New York city. hIorrissey,
as cliallenger, had the choice of venue and he chose well for three reasons.
first, the venue was easily accessible for the gamblers and spectators as it lay
on tlic Harlem railroad line. Secondly, the site was of disputed jurisdiction - it
lay on the point where the states of hiassachusetts, Connecticut and New
York met - thus, local magistrates were wary of intervening and thirdly, it was
near tlie town of Troy, which had been the Tipperary-born hlorrissey’s
hometown since the age of three.
I n the fight itself, Sullivan again found himself at a physical disadvantage.
Notwithstanding the eigliteen year, three inch height and two stone weight
disadvantage, Sullivan quickly bruised and battered hlorrissey’s face.
Howevcr, in the thirty seventh round Sullivan got distracted by one of
hlorrissey’s seconds and was so busy pummelling him that he forgot to come
up to scratch on time for the next round. In a welter of controversy and
mayhem, the referee awarded the fight to hIorrissey.25 Though Sullivan
continued to brag and boast after the fight, he never fought in a prize ring

23 Ibid.
24 A detailed obituary of Hyer appeared in 77tc~Gwlark Tier,27June 1864.
25 For coverage of the fight and its aftermath see l;lud&un f i f k n u , (1860), pp.20-2 and 77zXku
Ibrk Jimn, 13-14 October 1853.
38 JACK ANDERSON

again. Indeed, he soon left for California where he became a successful

political bully-boy. However, by 1856 he was dead with local businessmen,
appalled at his behaviour, funding a vigilante murder of Sullivan.26
hiorrissey remained the unofficial titleholder for the next few years nntil
another man from Troy, M7,John C. Heenan, the so-callcd ‘Uenicia Uoy’,
taunted him into the ring on 20 October 1858.27 In order to avoid the
authorities, the fighters and their retinue set sail from Buffalo across Lake Erie
and into Canada eventually docking near a spot called Long Point. Despite an
impressive and skilful start by Heenan, hlorrissey eventually wore him down
in eleven intense rounds. It was estimated that up to a quarter of a million
dollars was gambled on the light in New York State.28 hIorrissey effectively
retired after the Heenan fight. H e rose rapidly through the political ranks of
Irish-America in New York and by the 1860s his gambling interests had made
him so financially secure that he felt powerful enough to give testiniony
against Boss \\Warn Tweed of Tammany Hall infamy. Later, he served two
terms in the US Congress and two in the State Senate of New l’ork.29
As was the fashion, Heenan claimed the title of champion on the retirement
of AIorrissey. T h e high point of Heenan’s career was his so-called
‘Championship of the \\’orld’ bout against Tom Sayers in England in 1860,
which he lost controversially.30 Hc fought, and lost, once more to the English
Champion, Tom King, in 1863 and died a decade later in \\‘yoming ;I
desperate and penurious man?’ Thereafter the sport suffered a severe decline
in popularity. In the 1860s this was partly due to the Civil \\’ar draft reducing
the number of bouts in the traditional urban centres. Largely, the decline \vas
due to the sport’s own mismanagement and by the 1870s, after a succession of
dubious champions, even 7heArnerica Fistiana was suggesting that the days of
pugilism seemed to be drawing to a close.32
Corn suggests that this regression was primarily due to the ring’s internal
problems in that prize fighting, which had always had a dubious association
with the criminal undenvorld, had now let itself become a vehicle for
gambling interests. hktches were fixed; fighters and referees were bought off
with the ideal of a h i r fight giving way to the presumption of corruption.33 In

26 7hcAmmm Ftttiana,(1873), pp. 19-22.

27 The early part of Heenan’s career is recorded in lhcdmmn fifiana, (18GO), pp. 58-61.
28 Ibid.
29 O n hforrissey’s gambling interests see DenisJohnson, ‘A Sinful Business: the origins of
gambling syndicates in the United States’, in Datid Bayley, ed., Police and&&@ (London. 1977).
pp. 17-43. On hforrissey’s relationship uith Tweed and Tarnmany see Leo Henhkowitr, Ew~d’s
JV~Wlark (New York, 1977), pp.149-55,321-5. On hforrissey’s career see his obituary in 771c.\ho
Yolk Xmes, G hIay 1878.
M On this figlit see generally Alan Lloyd, 77k Gmf Rize Fihf (London, 1977).
J I Ibid., pp.35-7.
Jz 77kdmerican Futiana, 1873, pp.19-22; Corn, 1989, pp.172-8.
53 Ibid, Corn.
 PRIZE FIG11TING IN NINETEEAT11 CENTURY rliilERICA 39

187I , for example, Jem Mace, the English champion, and Coburn, the Irish-
American champion, fought two pathetically corrupt bouts.34 By 1880, the
mediocre and undesening Paddy Ryan, another man of Troy, was champion.
In addition, Gorn notes that unlike other shifty sports of the Gilded Age -
-
baseball and horse racing prize fighting in the United .States failed to
uniformly regulate or sanitise itself in the form of effective rules, regulations
and rituals.= Prize fighting, as had occurred in England a decade or so earlier,
was a victim of its own successes and excesses.36
This writer suggests (to a greater extent than Gorn does) that certain
cxtcrnal evcnts also contributed to the sport’s troubles and in particular this
writcr points to the impact of the criminal law. During this period, prize
fighting statutes appeared with greater regularity and although the number of
prize fights tliat were actually broken up by the police was probably small, the
exemplar). erect was significant. In turn, the implementation, or threat, of
these pro\isions forced post-bellum prize fighting even further into the arms of
the criminal undenvorld and even further along the road to ruin.

1V.Prize Fighting: Crime or Sport?

As in England, the courts in the United States originally defined the term
‘prize fighting’ in its broadest sense and applied it to many forms of
e n c o ~ n t e waged
r~ for reward, including those in which the contestants duelled
with swords, staffs or engaged in Iistic aKrays.3’ For example, in Adams u
Ilkgonu (1870),38 Adams sued the defendant in assault and battery arising out
of a fight in which he had been stabbed three times by his opponent. Air
Chief Justice Pettit of the Supreme Court of Indiana, demonstratiug an
impressive knowledge of the relevant English precedent, was of no doubt tliat
in agrceing to fight with knives the defendant was guilty of an assault.
Nevertheless, tlie Chief Justice did remark that a man should not recover
recompense for an injury received by his own consent, provided the act from
which the injury was received was lawful. Chief Justice Pettit reiterated this
principle of ‘secular or human’ law, by referring to the Book of Exodus, xxi,
18-19:

And if men strive together, and one smitc another with a stone or
with his fist and he die not, but keepcth his bed; if he rises again, and
walk about upon his sta q then he that smote him will be quit; only

3* 77zt American fistinnu, (1 873), pp. 148-5 1.

35 Gorii, 77rrdfnn$Arl, p.172.
36 See generally Anderson, ‘Ptgilistic Prosecutions’.
3’ Elmer hIillion, ‘The Enforceabilityof Prize fight Statutes’, Ainhrrlz).LnuJoumal, 27 (1937),
p. 152.
38 Indiana Rc)orts, 33 (1870). p.531.
40 JACK ANDERSON

he shall pay for tlie loss of time, and shall cause him to be thoroughly
liealed.39

Though ildams u Ilkgoner has been cited as holding that prize fights were
illegal, thus negating any element of consent, strictly speaking its precedent
concerned the illegality of duelling and street fights. Nore prcciscly the case
demonstrates that in the ninetcenth century prize fighting in the Unitcd States
while not eo nominee an offence at common law, was nevertheless punishable as
a breach of the peace, assault and battery, riot or affray. A prime example of
that approach is Cotnmonwealth v Collberg (1876):O wherein the Supreme Court
of Massachusetts sat on appeal to consider an indictment for an assault and
battery, in what was in erect a prize fight between Collberg and a hlr Charles
Phenix.
At trial there were conjoint indictments the first of which was an assault and
battery by Collberg upon Phenix and the other for an assault and battery by
Phenix upon Collberg. The defendants admitted that they had fought each
other but had done so in a secluded spot in rront of a small crowd. hloreover,
the defendants argued that there was no assault and battery in that they had
mutually consented to the bout and that the subsequent struggle was an
amicable contest voluntarily continued on both sides without anger or malice
or any intention to do each other liodily harm. In sum, the defendants stated
that they had fought simply for the purpose of testing their strength and
agility. The trial judge, A h Justice Lord, was not of a similar opinion. The
judge took into account the prosecution’s evidence that the basis of the bout
had in fact been a prior verbal altercation between the parties, that they had
fought until one of the parties (Collberg) \vas at a standstill and that
subsequently both wcre ‘a good deal bruised’. A h Justice Lord instructed the
jury as follows:

If the defendants were simply engaged in a wrestling match, that

being a lawful sport, they could not be convicted of an assault and
battery; but if by mutual agreement between themselves, previously
made, they went to a retired spot for the purpose of fighting with
each other, and for the purpose of doing each other physical injury
by fighting, with a view to ascertain by a trial of their skill in fighting
which was the best man, and there engaged in a fight, each
endeavouring to and actually doing all the physical injury in his
power to the other, and if, in such contest, each did strike the other
with his fist for the purpose of injuring him, each may properly be
convicted of assault and battery upon the other, although the whole

39Ibid., p.531.
4~Afma~hur~tt.r Rtprk, 119 (1876), p.350.
 PRIZE FIGHTING IN NINETEENTH CENTURY AhIERICA 41

was done by mutual arrangement, agreement and consent, and

without anger on the part of either against tlie other.”

The defendants appealed this instruction to the Supreme Court of

Riassachusctts. The Supreme Court of that state, then one of the most
powerful and influential in the United States, was of the opinion that the
instructions given by the presiding judge contained a full and accurate
stateniciit of the law, Delivering judgment for the court, Mr Justice Endicott
concludcd his judgment by referring the seminal English case of R u LpIL‘iS
(I 844)4* in which that court had remarked in similar circiimstances: ‘If both
partics went out to strike one another, and did so, it is an assault in both. It is
quite immaterial which struck the first blow, as no blow can be justified, unless
it be given in self defence’.
Sarnnions is of the opinion that the Collberg decision ‘devastatcd the sport in
Alassacliusetts and closed every legal loophole, including the fiction that
boxing and allegedly scientific sparring contests, often characterised by the use
of gloves, differed from prize lighting’.43 The view that the sport in Boston and
elsewhere was ‘devastated’ by the decision is a somewhat exaggerated claim,
though admittedly John L. Sullivan, for example, rarely fought in his native
state. More relevantly, the issue as to what distinguished prize fighting from
boxing or sparring was one that intrigued the American courts for some time
thereafter. At first, it was thought that as a consequence of the gradual switch
from the London Prize Fight Rules of 1838 (associated in legal circles with the
bare-fisted sport), to the more refined hIarquis of Queensberry rules of 1865
(associated with gloved bouts), the sport could avoid the reach of tlie criminal
law. This was to prove incorrect, at least initially.
In Shfe u Burnhuiii (1884),4+for example, the Supreme Court of Vermont, in
affirming the conviction of two prize lighters charged with breaching the
pcacc, liad been unimpressed with the defendant’s distinction between a prize
light and boxing. At trial, a Rlr Justice Taft liad refused to admit into
evidence the boxing gloves worn by the fighters. The appellate court agrced
with this discretion as ‘The gloves furnished no criterion by which to judge the
character of the contest nor of the manner in which it was conducted’.’s Air
Justicc Ross, delivering the opinion of the superior court observed

It is true, as contended by the respondent’s counsel, that sparring or

boxing with gloves manufactured for that purpose, as conducted and

41 Ibid., pp.353-4.
“English Rrporb, 174 (18ti),p.874.
43JeiTrey Sammons, Bgond iht Rins- the rob ofbonhg in A&an s&p (Chicago,1990), p.G.
44 15nnont&ports, 56 (1884), p.445.
l5 Ibid., p.4 18.
42 JACK ANDERSON

engaged in ordinary athletic sports, is not unlawful, nor a breach of

the peace. It may be that such sports, properly conducted, are both
healthful and promotive of physical vigour and development, and
should be encouraged. But such pugilistic exercise may be abused
and carried beyond the limits of healthful and lawful exercise and
sport. It may be conducted as to create a breach of the peace. It may
even degenerate into a prize fight.46

It must be notcd that by I884 the state of Vermont was in a minority in that
most states in the Union had by this time specific prohihitory Iegislation on
the issue of prize fighting. Consequently, the somewhat tortuous distinctions
invoked by the Supreme Court of Vermont were avoided. In Setlille u Sfate
(1892),47 for example, David Seville was indicted for a violation of section
6888 of the Revised Statutes of the State of Ohio, which provided: ‘whoever
engages as principal in any prize. fight shall be imprisoned in the penitentiary
not more that ten years nor less than one year’. Seville had fought Arthur
Majesty in a bout held at Nelsonville Athletic Club, Ohio on 25 February
1891. The fight ended in tragedy lvith the death of Majesty in the eighteentli
round. The post mortem revealed that Rlajesty’s skull had been fractured and
that an artery of his brain had been ruptured.
At trial, Seville’s counsel argued that what had taken place was not a prize
-
fight prohibited but undefined by section 6888 - rather a gloved bout, which
took place under regulated Queensberry rules. Accordingly, an attempt to
distinguish the stated events from the defining characteristics of a prize fight
was central to Seville’s defence. In this, his legal representatives noted that a
prize fight was a fight to the finish or until one of the contestants was so
exhausted that the fight could not proceed. They further noted that in a prize
fight there was no limit of time as to the number of rounds in that the parties
are permitted to wrestle and throw each other, and the round ended as soon
as one party was either knocked down, thrown down or dcliberatcly falls.
Finally, Seville’s legal team contended that in a prize fight the contcstants
fought with their bare knuckles and were required to wear spikes in thcir
shoes, so that the fight could not take place on a floor, or anywhere wlierc the
spike could not attach itself.
In contrast, Sedle’s counsel argued that what had occurred in this instance
was clearly intended to be a sparring match only. The bout was fought with
gloves. The number of rounds was predetermined and each individual round
was limited in time (in this case, three minutes). A referee controlled the
contest and decided the final result. hforeover, because it was a gloved
contest, the parties were permitted to use gloves of such weight as was agrccd

46 Ibid., p.447.
‘7 Ohio Sfa& &por&, 49 (1 892), 1’. 1 17.
 PRIZE FIGHTING IN NINETEENTI1 CENTURY AMERICA 43

upon (in this case, two ounces), and that these gloves were used for the
purpose of avoiding material injury. In addition, the defence oKercd the trial
-
court the benefit of expert testimony from a witness who would testify that
he had himself engaged in fifty two prize fights and boxing matches
altogether, and had, in total, six years experience in the ‘art’ of boxing to -
she\\: that a distinct difference existed between ‘prize fighting’ and the sport of
‘boxing’, tlie latter clearly having occurred in this instance. Finally, Seville
noted that the fight had taken place in an athletic club licensed by the hlayor
of Nelsonville to hold regular ‘boxing exhibitions’ and that this license had
been p i d by the promoters demonstrating that the fighters had in good faith
engaged in an athletic club exercise only, and not a prize fight.
The trial judge rejected the offer of expert testimony and instructed the jury
that tlic single most important issue in the case was whether or not the
defendant had engaged in a prize light, which must be simply defined in its
ordinary signification as a fight for a prize or reward and included all fights of
that character, however conducted, and whether witnessed by many or few
people. Tile jury found the defendant guilty as cliargcd in the indictment in
that Seville ‘did unlawfully engage as principal in an unlawful and
premeditated fight and contention commonly called a prize fight, with one
Arthur Alajesty, and in said fight the said David Seville and Arthur Majesty
did, each tlie other unlawfully strike and bruise and attempt to strike and
bruise for and in consideration of prize and reward’.48 Duly convicted and
sentenced, Seville appealed to the Supreme Court of Ohio primarily on the
grounds that the indictment was defective and vague but also on the grounds
that a liccnsc authorising the fight had been issued and the trial judge was in
error in sustaining the prosecution’s objection to the testimony offered by the
expert witness on the fundamental difference that existed between prize
fighting and boxing.
AIr Justice \\‘illiams of the Supreme Court of Ohio dismissed all three
grounds of tlie appeal. First, \Villiams was of the opinion that the clear
purpose of the statute at issue was ‘to suppress all prize fighting, because of its
brutality, and consequent danger to human life, as \veil as the demoralising
and pernicious effects it has on the good order and \wIl being of society’.49
The Supreme Court agreed with the trial judge that tlie term ‘prize fight’
should be given its ordinary meaning under the statute in the sense that was a
pugilistic encounter or boxing match for prize or wager.50 Secondly, the
Supreme Court stated that the license awarded to the club for a boxing
exhibition was no defence to an indictment under section 6888 in that if the
defendant cngaged in a prize fight, it was immaterial whether a license had

48Ibid., pp.130-131.
”1Ibid., p.131.
M Ibid.
44 JACK ANDERSON

been issued to an athletic club for that purpose, or for the purpose of giving a
boxing exhibition or not. If Seville had engaged in a sparring o r boxing
exhibition only, then he would have to bc acquitted, irrespective of whether a
license was obtained. AIr Justice \Villiams observed that at most the license
demonstrated that ‘the Alayor only intended to license a boxing exhihition,
and that the club was authorised to give such an exhibition; neither of which
facts was material, in determining whether what actually occurred, was or was
not, a prize fight’.51
Thirdly, hlr Justice \\’illiams noted that certain facts surrounding the bout
betrayed the true nature of the event in question. In particular, the Supreme
Court focussed on letters written by Majesty to B friend revealed that detailed
negotiations had been entered into before hand, as well as the \iciousness of
the fight in question - the post mortem revealed the top half of hlajesty’s body
had been extensively bruised. The court was clearly appalled at the fact that
when hlajesty was carried dying from the ring, witnesses had spotted Seville
collecting his earnings. hlr Justice \\‘illiams concurred fully with the trial
judge, concluding:

The question for the jury to decide, was, whcther this combat was a
prize fight; not what the Queensberry Rules, or any other rules
called it, nor what name those accustomed to such combats, have
given it. \\%at was it in plain English? And this question of fact,
under proper instruction from the court as to what constitutes a
prizefight, the j u r y was competent to decide, as the most experienced
boxer or prizefight. The question was not one of skill, or science, to
be decided upon the opinions of those experienced in such practices,
or by rules adopted for the government of associations of these
persons; but one, within the comprehension of the common
understanding, and the range of common knowledge, which jury
could decide, upon the facts proven, as well as a professional
pugilkt.52

V. Anti-Prize Fighting Statutes

Unlike England where no direct legislative provisions existed, the antics of
fighters such as ‘Yankee’ Sullivan and later John L. Sullivan, and the
objectionable nature of their ‘profession’ brought out a strong puritanical
streak in many state legislatures throughout the United States, particularly on
the eastern coast.53 As early as 1849, the Commonwealth of Alassacliiisctts
passed a statute entitled ‘An Act to Prevent Prize Fighting’. Section one of the

st Ibid., p.135.
52 Ibid., pp. 136-7.
53 For a general redew ofthese statutes see hlillion, ‘Enforceabilityof Prize fight Statutes’.
 II<IZE FIGIlTING IN NINETEENTII CENTURY AhlERICA 45

provision declared: ‘every person who sliall by previous appointment or

arrangcmcnt, mect another pcrson and engage in a fight, shall be punished’.
Section two stated: ‘every person who shall be present at such a fight, as an
aid, second or surgeon, or who shall advise, encourage or promote such fight,
shall be punished’.
In Conmonzreulh u Il‘elsh and Afitchell(l856),5( a gathering including Edward
\\‘elsh, his co-defendant, a hlr Freeman Clarson and a crowd of about thirty
persons, had been spotted by police in Providence, Rhode Island on the
evening of 30June 1855. Several police offtcers had followed the crowd across
the state linc, and had seen \\‘elsh and Clarson strip to the waist and prcparc
to fight. At triai, the police oficers fon\Pardcd evidence that when they had
attempted to stop the fight Alitcliell, who was \\‘elsh’s second, told them that
they had no jurisdiction and that the fight would go on. Though the fight
-
appeared to be governed by the London Prize Ring Rules a scratch was
-
made in tlie ground and it was fought in short, inconsistent rounds the police
noted that after about twenty minutes, the crowd, on seeing that \\‘clsh was
getting a beating, had decided to attack Clarson with the fight ending in an
inglorious melee.
Tlic jury found the defendants guilty. \\‘elsh was convicted under section 1
of the anti-prize fighting legislation and Alitchcll under section 2. The
defendants appealed on the grounds that the indictments did not set forth the
respective oKences ‘fully and plainly, substantially and formally’ in that the
objective of the statute, as declared in its title, was ‘to prevent prize fighting’.
Thc kcts, they argued, did not strictly constitute a prize fight in that incident
did not constitute a public exhibition for a reward or prize, to which the
legislature intended to give the character of a felony, but only an affray or ring
fight. AIr Justicc hletcalf of the Supreme Court of AIassachusetts rejected the
argument that the offence as stated was ambiguously drawn.
In concluding, hietcalf also noted that it was not necessary, to maintain an
indictment under the provision, to prove that thc fight was for a prize or
reward. According to Aletclaf, a successful prosecution of prize fighting did
not even have to prove that the event took place in the jurisdiction. hlister
Justice Alorton followed hlctclafs strict interpretation of the statute in
Cotninonweulfh v Bclrretf (187 1).55 In that case, Barrett and his opponent, a Air
Patrick Kellcher, had on 1 1Jdy 1870 by previous arrangement in the town of
Lawrence, hlassachusctts agreed to a prize fight. Tho~ighthe actual fight
took place across the state line in Salem, New Hampshire, the court held that
this was no bar to a conviction under Rlassachusetts’ law.
These developments in the criminal law had a similar effect on prim
fighting in tlie United States as analogous developments in the criminal law

54 dtacsarhurtffrRqori.~,73 (1856), p.324.

55.\lmrarhusttfs Rr,bod, 108 (1871). p.302.
46 JACK ANDERSON

had on the sport in Britain. In brief, they heralded the decline of the bare-
fisted version of the sport. Isenberg’s conclusion on the state of prize fighting
in the United States at the beginning of the 1880s is as incisive as it is concise:
‘Outlawed, excoriated, harangued from pulpit and press, the bare-knuckle
breed as a commercial spectacle found no home in American Iife’.5G Prize
fighting was doomed and nothing it seemed could stop the progress of its
critics or of the magistrates. Set the 1880s witnessed a revival of the sport,
both in legal and sporting terms. The rapid rebirth of the sport and its
subsequent social acceptability can be traced in the life of one man who
emerged from a section of American society that was undergoing a similar
transformation - the urban, working class Irish of the city of Boston.

VI. John L. Sullivan

Sullivan’s career in well documented, most comprehensively by Isenberg.57
Born in I858 into the heaving mass of uncertainty, masculinity and poverty
that was the Boston Irish community at this point in the nineteenth century,
Sullivan announced himself to the fight community in 1881.58 In a suitably
theatrical gesture Sullivan took the stage at Harry Hill’s Dance Hall and
Boxing Emporium on New York‘s East Side - then boxing’s premier venue -
offering fifty dollars to any man who could last four rounds with him under
the Queensberry rules. A veteran fighter named Steve Taylor accepted the
offer but was badly beaten in two rounds. The aKair was closcly watched by
Richard Kyle Fox, the proprietor of ne Police Gaiytle, then the most successful
boxing promoter in the United States.59
Fox would h a w looked on with more direct interest when Sullivan’s
penchant for self-promotion led to a title fight with the Tipperary born, Paddy
Ryan. A report on the initial negotiations for this ‘championship of the world’
even appeared in the vehemently anti-prize fight J‘em York 7imes.w The
heavily gambled upon fight took place on 7 February 1882 in Iilississippi City,
Mississippi, with the raucous crowd enjoying the comfort of special excursion
trains laid on by the Louisville & Nashville Railroad office in New Orleans.6’
Both the states of Louisiana and hlississippi had statutes prohibiting prize
fighting and there was much subterfuge between the fight’s promoters and the
railway company to ensure that the authorities would not happen upon the

%MichaelIsenberg,John L SuNirun undHisdmnira(Chicago, 1994)’ p.81.

57 Ibid.
5) Similar patterns can be seen in Herbert rbbury, zht Cunp of.\;., Ibrk urn injnnal histvv o f h
undmrwrld(London,2002) and IIerbert Assbury, 7 h e Underuwrlk an informal h i s t o ~of rhc Chicu20
undcnrorld (London, 19.8I).
sg See generally Guy Reel, ‘Richard Fox, John L Sullivan and the rise of modern Anierican
prizeIighting’,Joumu~~mHisfog,27 (2) (2001)’ pp.73-86.
60 llic~Vmrork Tim,25 September 1881.
61 Dale Somers, 7hc Rise ofSportc in A K Odeunr,
~ 1850-1900(Baton Rouge, 1972), pp.165-6.
 PRIZE FIGIITING INNINETEENTII CENTURY AAlERICA 47

figlitcrs and their retinue as they steamed their way across the Louisiana states
line to briefly stop, and fight, in hiississippi.62 Local dailies were manifestly
disgusted at the behaviour of the fight crowd and the paucity of action from
the authorities to stop what was an illegal event, though it did not prevent
these journals from covering the fight in its every detai1.a The fight itself was
somewhat disappointing and lasted roughly ten minutes with Sullivan easily
defeating Ryan in nine rounds, as governed by the London Prize Ring
Rulcs.Gt
For the next decade or so Sullivan, despite chronic alcoholism, easily held
on to his title, defending it approximately thirty times. These fights were
predominantly arranged around Sullivan’s great tours of the United States in
1883-4 and 1886-7, whereupon on each stop John L made his standard offer
of one thousand dollars to any man who could last four rounds. Interestingly,
and unlike the original title fight against Ryan, all of these bouts were fought
with gloves and took place under the Queensherry rules. There is no great
mystcry as to why Sullivan prcferred gloves. Padded gloves were held to be
safer than bare fists. They would prolong Sullivan’s career and enable him to
makc more money.
Indeed, Sullivan was a commercial phenomenon. Availing of one
cornmcntator’s figures, it is estimated that Sullivan cleared between eighty to
one hundred thousand dollars during the 1883-4 tour of the United States
aIotic.65 Subsequently, Sullivan’s commercialisation of the ring would open
unprecedented opportunities for other boxers and a mere generation later,
heavyweight title bouts featuring boxers such as Jack Dempsey and Gene
Tunncy were grossing \veil over a million dollars in gate receipts alone.
Of more immediate importance is however Sullivan’s regular contests with
the criminal law and the authorities, and the manner in which this influenced
the development of the sport as a whole.

W I . Sullivan and the Liw

For two reasonsJohn L. Sullivan rarely practiced his profession the state of liis
birth. First, that state had long had an anti-prize fighting provision on its
statutc hook, and as has been demonstrated in the aforementioned Collberg
decision, the authorities were reasonably proficient in implementing it. Tlie
second reason was straightforwardly a monetary one in that the commercial
heart of American sport lay then in New York.

62 Iliid.
6’ See in particular 7hcniu:Orbans TmcsDcmocrat and 7hc~Vk~~ OrIeans l%cgwnc, 2-8 Februav
1882.
llai!y Globc and l?u&u lbrk Tima,8 February 1882.
64 n c B o ~ i o n
6s Isenl>erg,Johr L Sulikm, pp. 168-70.
48 JACK ANDERSON

Prize fighting had first received the dedicated attention of the criminal law
in the state of New York by the enactment in 1858 of a statute entitled: ‘An
Act to prevent prize fights and fights among game animals’. The following
year saw the enactment of more specific legislation in the form of, ‘An Act to
prevent and punish prize fights’. Consequently, section 458 into the Penal
Code of the State of New York, which on conviction carried a maximum
punishment of one year in jail and/or a fine of $250, stated:

A person ivlio, within this State, engages in, instigiites, aids,

encourages, or does any act to further a contention or a fight without
weapons between two or more persons, or a fight commonly called a
ring or prize fight, either within or without this State, or who sends
or publishes a challenge or acceptance of the challenge for such a
contention or fight, or carries or delivers such a challcngc or
acceptance, or trains or assists any person in training or preparing for
such a contest or fight, is guilty of a misdemeanour.

T h e provision was roundly ignored by the authorities and easily

circumvented. Typically, bouts were held on a barge floating on the Hudson
in front of a carefully selected audience of gamblers, press and promoters. On
16 Alay 1881 Sullivan defeated John Flood in just such circumstances in a
fight that was held by candlelight, circumstances that merely added to his
mystique.GG Nevertheless, in 1883-4 in an unprecedented burst of moral
purification the then RIayor of New York, Franklin Edson, undertook a
campaign to the rid the city of the prize fighting scourge. Sullivan was a prime
target and on 14 hlay 1883 the authorities halted a bout between Charlie
hlitchell and Sullivan at Madison Square Garden. The police entered the ring
during the course of the third round on the ground that what was taking place
could not reasonably be deemed sparring but was in fact a prize fight in
contravention of section 458.67
The following year the authorities became aware that on 18 November
Sullivan was due to fight Alf Greenfield again at Madison Square Garden in
New York.” On 17 November 1884, Sullivan, his manager and his opponent
plus the promoter of the fight, Richard Kyle Foxyfound themselves in front of
the State Supreme Court, pleading to a Air Justice Barrett to permit the
‘exhibition’ to go ahead. hlr Justice Barrett permitted the fight to go ahead
but warned the fighters that ‘the blows are to have no relation to the injury or
exhaustion of either party’. The fight did take place on the following night but

66 As reportedin ntl Boston Lhib Globe, 1 7 May 1881.

67 7;hc~Vh~Ibrk Tinus, 15 hfay 1883.
Isenberg,John L Sulliran, pp.177-83.
 PRIZE FIGIiTING IN NINETEENTH CENTURY AhlERICA 49

was stopped by the police early in the second round with Sullivan
bludgeoning the hapless Greenficld.69
Both figliters were immediately arrested and charged under section 458
with the bloodied gloves used in the fight taken as evidence. The jury trial on
17 Dccernbcr 1884 was as much a farce as it was a sensation. The jury,
awestruck by the popularity of Sullivan, and most likely bribed, returned, in
less than eight minutes, a unanimous verdict of not guilty primarily on the
grounds that the exhibition was not a contest for physical supremacy. hIayor
Edson was not the first to be defeated by Sullivan and even though Sullivan's
next figlit in New York, against Paddy Ryan on 19January 1885, was again
prematurely ended by the police, by this stage Sullivan and the prize fighting
community as a whole were aware that if they couched their meetings in the
language, circumstance and rules of gloved boxing or sparring exhibitions, the
law as then stated could have little itnpact on their sport. From now on only
the most cstreme cases of primitive bare-fisted prize fighting would fall foul of
thc statutc.70
This trend towards the greater acceptance of the gloved sport in Ncw York
is \vcll dcmonstratcd in People v Floss (1 889).7' In that case, the defendant was
charged with instigating and encouraging a fight contrary to section 458 of
the Penal Code of the State of New York. The fight was between hvo women,
Lilihie Spann, alias Hattie L,eslic, and Barbara Dillon, alias Alice Leary. The
event, though arranged in Ncw York, actually occurred in Canada. At trial, it
became apparent that Spann considered herself a professional boxer and
frequently gave exhibitions on the stage of her prowess. It was claimcd that
thc contest in question was merely an exhibition or advertisement of her skills.
Soft glovcs were used, no injury was effected or intended, and no prize or
reward was offered. The defendant was not present at the fight, though he
had been when some of the details were arranged. H e was convicted, and
appealed. On appeal the decision was reversed 011 the grounds that a
conviction under section 458 was unwarranted when the contest was intended
only as an adwrtisement for one of the participants, to secure notoriety, and
thus a better salary as an exhibition boxer, and no prize was to be gained by
the successful person.
Accordingly, Sullivan, and all the major prize fighters, became increasingly
attracted to Queensberry regulated bouts, which now clearly attracted lower
lcvcls of physical and legal risk. Nevertheless, Sullivan was twice tempted into
dcfcnding his title and his reputation with bare knuckles, and quite simply it
got him into trouble. The first occasion occurred near the end of his 1887-8

69 77Brhkr lark Pimrs, 18 November 1881.

For nil example of such a con\iction see People \- Finucan, hiw Ibrk St$plmtent &portti, 80
(1903), 11.923.
'1 &nu Ibrk Supp/mtnt RtPrkr, 7 (1889), p.50 1.
50 JACK ANDERSON

tour of Britain and Ireland, when Sullivan agreed to a re-match with English
fighter Charlie hlitchell.7* Since their previous, incomplete fight, I\litchell,
spurred on by Richard Kyle Fox, had taunted and insulted tlie champion.
Sullivan, suitably enraged, agreed to an uncharacteristic full defencc of his
title undcr the bare-knuckle rules of the London Prize Ring.
By this period in tlie nineteenth century the English legal authorities were
well versed in their dealings with prize fighting and on 2 hfarch 1888 1\Iitchcll
found himself peremptorily bound to the pcace for over two hundred pounds.
The light eventually had to take place eight days later on the estate grounds of
Baron Alphonse Rothschild near Chantilly, just north of Paris, probably
without the knowledge of the Rothschild family.73 Alitchell and Sullivan
eventually mct on 10 March 1888 in northern France on a bitterly cold day.
The unconditioned Sullivan imrnediatcly struggled in front of the sniall but
knowledgeable crowd.74 hlitchell and his team of backers cheated
impressively. The ring was oversized allowing Rfit~llellto evade Sullivan’s
charges. AZitchell regularly punched below the belt and wore longer than
normal spikes on his boots using them to rake Sullivan’s shins. At the slightest
hint that Sullivan was gaining momentum, hlitchell fell to one knee signalling
- under the old rules - the cnd of the round. At one stage Sullivan was heard
roar, ‘Fight like a gentleman, you son of a bitch, if you can,’ but I\Iitchcll
would not and after thirty nine frustrating rounds both men agreed to a draw.
As the pugilists and their immediate backers left the Rothschild estate
Frcnch police arrested them. Sullivan spent one night in jail, skipped bail and
fled to Liverpool and then home. He was sentenced in absentia to three days in
prison and a finc of one thousand francs. As Sullivan left Liverpool on his
return journey it was surely evident to him that the days of the old bare
knuckle fight were drawing to a close. The risk of injury, the considerable
obstacles in arranging and holding prize fights as well increased legal
surveillance were threatening the very existence of the sport.
On his return to the United States, Sullivan found that boxing aficionados
were unimpressed with his failure to deal with hlitchell. In fact, as Richard
Kyle’s Police Gazetle pointed out, at least Rlitchell served his prison sentence.
Inevitably, a chastcned Sullivan was goaded into one more barc-fistcd light.
This final encounter was, appropriately, an historic occasion, and marks the
true beginning of the modern sport of boxing.

1411. Sullivan and Kilrain

John Joseph Killion was born on 9 Fcbruary 1859 in Long Island, NY. Almost
inevitably for a boxer of this time he was of Irish parcntage. Throughout the

72 On this tour see generally IsenbergJohn L Sulliran, pp.237-56.

73 hid., p.249.
74 h lbrk T i $ ,11 AIItrch 1888.
report of the fight appears in 77~tn’k~
 PRIZE FIG€ITING IN NINETEENTH CENTURY AMERICA 51

1880s Killion, undcr the name Jake Kilrain, stcadily built up a reputation as a
prizc fightcr until finally Richard Kyle Fox’s quest for a credible rival to
Sullivan happened upon the New Yorker. O n 4 June 1887 and amid much
ccreniony, tlie proprietor of the Police Gazette awarder1 an ornate heavyweight
championship belt to Kilrain. For the following ycar or so, the Police Gazette
rnaintaincd a constant propaganda campaign directed against the ex-
champion Sullivan. The paper stressed, indeed hyped, the contrast behveen
thc prudent and modest behatiour of Kilrain and thc uncouth profligacy of
Sulli~an.~5
O n 19 Dccember 1887, Kilrain added to liis reputation 1)y fighting Jcm
Smith for the ‘championship of England’. Tlie light occurred on an island in
tlic niiddlc of the Seine and lastcd for almost three hours. After I06 rounds
thc fight, as governed by the London Prize King Rules, was declared a draw.
Kilrain’s rcputation was enhanced by this impressive show of doggedness and
within a ycar Sullivan had issucd a challenge to Kilrain, vowing to rid Kilrain
of his ‘dog collar of a belt’. Sullivan’s formal challenge was typical of the day:

I hereby challenge Jake Kilrain to fight me according to the latest

rulcs of the London prize ring for the sum of S10,OOO a side or as
much as he would like me to make it. The fight to take place six
months after signing articles, the place of tlie fight to be mutually
agreed upon. I have this day placed in the hands of the Sporting
lbrk Gripper the sum of $5,000 as a guarantee of
Editor of tlie J ~ W
good faith.
John L. Sullivan, Champion of
the \\’0rld76

Tlic articlcs of agreement, which were signcd in Toronto on 7 January 1889,

outlined that the fight would take place on 8 July 1889 within 200 miles of
New Orlcans. The Louisiana statc authorities did not view the hosting of the
figlit as a privilege and Govcrnor Francis T. Nicholls - soon followcd by
Governor Robert Lowry of ncighbouring hlississippi - issucd an executive
order prohibiting the fight.77 Nicholls and Lowry were supported by
Governors Ross (Texas), Eagle (Arkansas), Scay (Alabama) and Evans
(Nebraska) but their efforts, and particularly those of Governor Nicholls, were
unsuccessful to the point that on the day of the light, Louisiana state troops

75 Vie editor of the Gazcf&,IVilliam Edgar €larding, dutifully produced a biography of Kilrain
that reproduces many of the articles that appeared in the Cazemin the lead up to the Sullivan-
Rilrain bout, IVilliarn E. IIarding, 7Ae LiJc undBat/lrsOfJake hZrain (New York, 1888).
76 The challenge appeared in 7Aen’nu lbrk Ch&, 29 December 1888.
71 I\*illiani Adams, ‘New Orleans as the National Centre of Boxing’, Laukiana IIirrOricaf Qua&+,
39 (1936), pp.92-4 and Somen, 7hr Rice ofsports in Xku Orlmns, pp. 170-4.
52 JACK ANDERSON

could not even find adequate rail transport.78 Despite these gubernatorial
threats, the build-up to Sullivan v Kilrain continued unabashed and by
10.30am on the morning of 8 July 1889 almost three thousand spectators
were present at the fight scene near Richburg, hlississippi. Both sets of
supporters werc ferried to Richburg by three special trains that left earlier that
morning from New Orleans and they were to idmess Sullivan’s finest liour.79
For a change Sullivan had trained well under the tutelage of the world
famous wrestIer \\‘illiam hIuldoon and, even in the early stages of the fight, it
showed.80 The stamina and confidence engendered by hluldoon’s training
regime enabled Sullivan to deal with both the soaring temperatures of nearly
one hundred and twenty degrees Fahrenheit and the loss of ‘first blood’,
which went to Rilrain. In addition, Sullivan dealt competently with Kilrain’s
attempts to spike and otherwise frustrate the champion. Even the presence of
the provocative hiitchell in Kilrain’s corner did not distract Sullivan and after
two and a quarter hours, Kilrain’s trainer refused to allow his lighter to come
up to the scratch,’Sullivan was victorious or as the JI%W ~ b r kZines put it on -
page one no less - ‘The Bigger Brute \\‘on’.81 \\’it11 the adrenaline of victory
still present, Sullivan ran to grab hfitchell, both had to be separated much to
the amusement of the crowd, who in acknowledgment of the occasion, ripped
the stage and turfto pieces in the search for mementos.
In the aftermath of the fight, the state of hlississippi attempted to indict
both Kilrain and Sullivan. At trial, Sullivan wvas convicted and he immediately
and successfully appealed. Quite simply, Sullivan’s popularity, this time
impacting on the appellate judge, made a mockery of the prize fighting statute
of the state of hIississippi. In the case itself, Sullivan v Ihe Slate oJMi&sippi
(1890),8* Sullivan was actually indicted on hvo counts - the first for an assault
and battery the second for a violation of a statute entitled, ‘An act to prevent
prize fighting in this state and for other purposes’, approved by the Ahissippi
state legislature on 7 Rlarch 1882. Section 1 of the Act declared: ‘It shall be
unlawful for any person to engage in prize fighting in this State, and any
person engaged in such prize fighting shall be deemed guilty of a
misdemeanour’.
At trial, Sullivan was acquitted under the first count but convicted under
the second. The relevant part of the indictment charged that Sullivan on the
date and at the place named did

‘0 The brcical atternpk to stop the fight can be traced through reports in 7 k ~ V k u
lbrk 7imcs froni
2 July 1889 to 8 July 1889.
79 The best seconchry account of the fight is by IsenbergJohn L Sulficun,pp.257-80.771c.\kulbrk
Emn, 9July 1889 gives a competent contemporary report.
Edward \‘an Every, dfuldoon. SdidMun OjSporf (New York, 1929), pp.131-4.1.
*1 7hch’rz Ibrk Kmes, 9July 1889; see also the front page ofJoseph Pulitzer’s 77xu\iw lbrk IlbrW,
9Jdy 1889. .
8zdfis&i~piReporb, 67 (1890), p.346.
 PRIZE FIGIITING IN NINETEENTH CENTURYMlERICA 53

Uy and in pursuance of a previous appointment and arrangement,

madc to meet and engage in a prize fight...with Jake Kilrain, did
then and there, and for a large sum of money.. .unlawfully engage in
a prize fight with the said Jake Kilrain ...and did then and there in
thc said ring, beat, strike, and bruise the saidJake Kilrain: against the
peace and dignity of the state of hlississippi.

In a gloriously corrupt judgment Rlr Justicc Cooper - without reference to

appropriate authority such as was available in nearby Alassachusetts e.g.,
Coninionirralth u Barretl (187 1) and CotnmonlueaW u Colfberg(l876) - held that the
indictment was fatally defective in three respccts. First, it did not clearly
specify the iinlawful act, in this case prize fighting, to thc cxclusion of other
acts not unla\vful thus depriving the defendant of notice of the nature of the
offence chargcd. Secondly, the indictment failed to allege that Kilrain also
had committed the offence, as Sullivan’s guilt was possiblc only if hvo persons
were guilty. The indictment failed to state that Kilrain had fought Sullivan;
only that Sullivan had fought Kilrain. Thirdly, Rlr Justice Cooper was of the
opinion that the dictionary definition (Cooper cited both \\‘ebster and
\\‘orccster) made it doubtful whether prize fights had to be in public to be
unlawful, but the statute must have intendcd to outlaw only public
encounters, permitting private encounters between amateurs or professionals
even though for a prize. Thus, RIr Justice Cooper concluded that the words of
the indictment were too broadly drawn.
Admittedly the indictment and legislation in qucstion were vague, however,
the mockery that had been made of the legal process in that case was clear to
all and was quickly and gleefully exploited by thc American sporting press as
highlighting the weakness of such statute law in the face of the popularity of
the sport.83 In 1893, Sullivan again benefited from some dubious and tortuous
legal reasoning, this time in Texas. In Sulfivan u State OJTexas (1893):’ the
Texas Court of Criminal Appeals reversed a 6500 fine imposed in Sullivan for
violation of an 1889 statute that required a $500 occupation tax of persons
cngaged in prize fighting. Tlie court held that subsequent Icgislation, which
madc prize fighting a felony, impliedly repealed the former statute, thus, the
fact that the profession was now declared unlawful by onc statute prevented
the collection of a tax imposed on such a profession by another statute. As
Million dryly noted: ‘Sullivan’s release was not unpopular, but the attitude of

83 See, for example, 77Unbw lbrk Cl$pcr, 28June 1890.

84 Texas CriminalRtporh,32 (1893), p.50.
54 JACKANDERSON
the court seems inconsistent with the general principle of tlie liberal
construction of tax statutesY.85
The ‘Sullivan effect’ on prize fighting statues was soon felt in otlier state
jurisdictions. For example, in 1893 in the People v Ty10186the Suprcme Court
of tlie State of Michigan reversed a conviction under that state’s prize fighting
statute on the grounds that tlie trial court had failed to instruct that the
offence could not be complete without both an expectation of reward Iiy tlie
contestants and an intention to inflict personal injury upon the opponcnt.
Three years later, and in similar circumstances, the Supreme Court of
Kansas, in I;ansus u PurfelCd7 reversed a conviction under that state’s prize
fighting statute in which the defendant had been sentenced to one year in jail.
It appears from the facts that the defendant had participated in a tn-enty-five
round boxing exhibition governed by the Queensberry rules. The participants
wore five-ounce gloves, a referee ofliciated and a $50 fee was paid to cacli
contender. At trial, the judge had instructed that the definition of the term
prize fight was consistent with a fight or physical contest between two persons
for a prize or reward. The appellate court deemed the instruction too broad
and restricted the definition to cases where there was an intent to use violence
for the purpose of inflicting injury. As no such intent ivas manifest in this casc,
the defendant was released.
The so-called ‘Sullivan efrect’ on prize fighting statutes was hoicever of little
real benefit to the fighters. In fact, Sullivan’s legal victory over the state of
hlississippi in 1890 was very much pyrrhic in nature as it cost Sullivan in tlie -
-
form of legal fees and travel expenses more than lie cleared from beating
Kilrain.88 In its aftermath, Sullivan vowed never again to fight under the old
bare-knuckle rules. In this Sullivan was true to his word and with that the days
of the old bare-knuckle title fight ended.
As far as the authorities were concerned, they were now faced with the
reality that the current prohibitory legislation was being circumvented and
ignored. In response, the various state legislatures decided to adapt tlicir anti-
prize fighting statutes by exempting from their operation sparring cshibitions
or gloved bouts held in buildings owned or leased by athletic associations or
clubs. The authorities hoped that with this they might negate tlie appeal of the
professional prize fight. In the end, tlie commercially driven desire of Sullivan
to move his sport away from the bare fist to that of tlie glove, and tlie

85 hfillion, !Enforceability of I’rite Fight Statutes’, p. 156. Suhsequently, the same author g i v e an
in-depth review of Texan prize fighting statutes in Elmer hfillion, ‘The IIistory of the Texas Prize
Fight Statute’, Tkus Lau Raim, 17 (1939). pp.152-62.
86 Mchignn Rebork, 96 (1893),p.576.
8’ Kmsas &Po&, 56 (1896), p.479.
Gom, lluMan!yArt, p.237.
 PRIZE FIGHTING IN NINETEENTII CENTURY AhlERICA 55

conconiitant desire of the authorities to promote and license boxing or

sparring, collided in the city of New Orleans, Louisiana.

IX. Sullivan and Corbett

Following the Kilrain fight, Sullivan remained out of the ring for the next
threc years. He took to the stage, touring North America and Australia. He
bccamc the first genuine sports celebrity.89 Sullivan soon found that Lme and
reputation were transient features of the professional sportsman’s career and if
hc wantcd to continue as a viable champion the public demanded that he
continue to fight for it. On 5 Riarch 1892, Sullivanissued a challenge to ‘any
or all tlic bluKers who had been trying to make capital at my expense, to fight
me’. Sullivan’s challenge was for a purse of $25,000, the fight to be held at the
NCW Orleans Olympic Club. Sullivan listed three preferred opponents
including Frank P. Slavin of Australia, ‘as his backers have done the greatest
amount of blowing’, ‘that bombastic sprinter, Charles hlitchell, of England,
whom I would rather whip more than any man in the world’ and finally,
James J. Corbett, ‘who has achieved his sharc of bombast’. The final sentence
of Sullivan’s challcnge is a noteworthy historic footnote: ‘The Marquis of
Queensberry Rules must govern this contest, as I want fighting, not foot-
racing, as I intend to keep the championship of the world where it belongs, in
the land of the free and the home of the brave’.w
From now on, it \\.as clear that championship bouts would be fought with
glo\*es.Furthermore, as far as Sullivan was concerned, it would be fought only
among whites. Sullivan’s challenge pointedly failing to mention Peter Jackson,
the great black Australian fighter, who was unquestionably the most credible
challenger to Sullivan’s title at that time?’
As a result of some impressive displays at the San Francisco Olympic Club -
including a defeat ofJake Kilrain - and through the canniness of his manager,
\\’illiam A. Brady, ‘Gentleman’ Jim Corbett managed to raise the stake
moncy for the Sullivan fight. The build up to the fight was intense.92 The
hosts, the New Orleans Olympic Club, were determined (literally) to offer
boxing a stage it had never been presented with before and a new arena, lit by
electricity and capable of holding ten thousand spectators, was built at a cost
of forty thousand dollars. h,loreover, the Olympic Club organised a veritable
feast of boxing in the days prior to the Sullivan-Corbett title bout. O n 5

8’ Iseiiberg,Jolm L SuNiran, pp.281-99.

90Jnnies Corbett, nic Roar offhe Crozcd: tfu true hle ofh rirE andfall ofa champion F e w York, 1925).
91 Corn, 7ht .\fanb.4rt, pp.238-9, IsenbergJohn L S u h m , pp.290-3 and Da\id \\’iggins, ‘Peter

Jackson and the Elusive Iiearj-weightChampionship: A Black Athlete’s Struggle Against the Late
Nineteenth Century Colour Line’,Joumaf ofSprf Hbtuy, 12 (1985), pp. 143-68.
92 A s a secondary source, IsenbergJohn L SUU~CM, pp.300-23 is an authority on the fight, though
Corbett’sown account is unusually reliable and objective, Corbett, 77uRonroflhc Cmud, pp.197-
201.
56 JACK ANDERSON

September 1892 it arranged a lightweight title fight between Jack I\lct\uliffe

and Billy hlyer, which ended with RIyer being knocked out in the fifteenth
round by the defending champion. The following day featherweight Jack
Skelly got severely punislied in eight rounds by George ‘Little Chocolate’
Dixon, much to the chagrin of the predominantly white attendance.93
The following day Sullivan and Corbett finally entered the ring. New
Orleans was agog with expectation with the ACew Orleans limes Democrat
reporting: ‘The most intense excitement prevailed throughout the city ...the
streets were thronged with visitors of all classes, from the millionaire to the
baker to the Likir. Politicians, lawyers, mcrchants and gamblers clhowd each
other in all public places on comparatively equal terrns’.gt Furthermore, there
was genuine nationwide interest in the fight, as evidenced by the significant
ncwspaper presence. In New York, a red beacon was ready to light u p on top
of the Pulitzer building if Sullivan won, a white one for Corbett.95
It was to be a white beacon. As.early as the third round Corbett ascertained
his dominance by smashing and bloodying Sullivan’s nose. Corbctt then
proceeded to humiliate the visibly ageing Sullivan. Despite protestations from
his comer, Corbett waited until the twenty-first round to finish ofTSullivan, a
tactic that later contributed to the fact that Corbett was (and remains) a
respected but largely ‘unloved’ champion.96 Once recovered, Sullivan give a
gracious speech muttering that he was glad that if he had to be whipped, that
at least he was ‘licked‘ by an American.
Iscnberg notes that in the aftermath of the Sullivan-Corbett fight, it was
common to mark it as some sort of ‘cultural event of significance, a kind of
way station along the route of American progress’, wherein Corbctt’s skill and
intelligence could be seen as overcoming Sullivan’s primitive strcngth.97
It is suggested that there is an element of sentimentality at play in that
conclusion.9~Corbett defeated Sullivan simply because he was the better
boxer. In short, on that September day Corbett was ph~sically,mentally and
tactically ahead of Sullivan. In any event, Sullivan himself was past his prime.
Boxer’s careers invariably end in failure, and Sullivan’s was to be no diffcrent.
Nevertheless, the symbolism of the Corbett-Sullivan fight - its organisation, its

93 Adams, ‘New Orleans as the National Centre of Boxing’, pp. 101-5 and Somers, 77u Ricr oJ
Sprts in JYU Orlranr, pp. 179-83.
94n’nuOrleans ‘limes Dtmonat, 8 Septeniber 1892.
95 Betts, ‘The Technological Revolution and the Rise of Sport’, pp.239-40.
% See generally Armond Fields,JumesJ. G r b e k u biogruplp offhehmyctight bo-ringchampion and
gopulur theufreheudher (Jefferson,N.G., 2001) and Patrick hCyler, CenfkmunJitn Corbetk fie frufi
behind u 6 o x i n blend
~ (London, 1998).
97IsenbergJohn L Sulliian, pp.322-3.
9~Note the uncharacteristicallygeneralised statements on this issue by Gorn, 7AThe.Ifun~Art,
pp.246-7 and IsenbergJohn L Sutliran, pp.322-3.
 PRIZE FIGHTING IN NINETEENTH CENTURS AAlERICA 57

setting and its aftermath - are of crucial significance as to the law’s evolving
attitude towards the sport.

X. The Olympic Clubs

In the latter half of the 1880s a number of chartered athletic clubs, notably
the New Orelans Olympic Club situated at 636 Royal Street, moved into the
lucrative field of boxing promotion. During that period, New Orleans became
the centre of the professional prize fighting game, culminating in 1891 with
tlie hosting by tlie Olympic Club of the Dempsey-Fitzsimmons world
middleweight title fight on 14January 1891.w These promotions, in various
newly established weight divisions, not only flew in the face of the cxisting
anti-prize fight statute of the state of Louisiana, but also the club’s own
charter and city ordinances. In fact, so roundly ignored \\‘ere these provisions
that the Olympic Club felt comfortable enough to successfiilly bid to stage the
Sullivan-Corbctt fight of 1892. The event was sporting and commercial
succcss and the Olympic Club recorded a profit of more than 650,000.
Disgusted at the ‘immoral’ success of the Olympic Club’s promotions, the
thcn Attorncy General of Louisiana, AIilton Cunningliatn, with the full
support of the new governor, Alurpliy Forster, brought suit against the
Olympic Cluh for the revocation and forfeiture of the club’s charter on the
grounds that it had acted ulira vires its powers by fostering, encouraging and
maintaining exhibitions of what were ‘commonly’ called prize fights, contrary
to the laws of tlie state of Louisiana. In Sfute v Ohinpic Club (1894),1~the
authorities also sought an injunction, restraining and prohibiting the Olympic
Club, its ollicers and agents, from further promoting such events.
The case specifically centrcd on an anti-prize fighting Act passed by the
General Assembly of the State of Louisiana on 25June 1890.

Section 1: Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of

Louisiana, that any person who shall send or cause to be sent,
publish or otherwise make known, a challenge to fight what is
commonly caused a prize fight, or who shall accept any such
challenge, or who shall engage in such a fight, or act as trainer for
any such, contemplating a participation in such fight, or in
preparation for such fight, shall, upon conviction thereor, be deemed
guilty of a misdemcanour and be punished by imprisonment in the

Adnms, ‘New Orleans as the National Centre of Boxing’, pp.9G-I 00 and Somers, ‘ I &Rue of
S t m b in w\hl, Orbans, pp. 174-8.
IWLouiriana.4nnual R@ot#~, 46 (1834), p.935. On the factual background to this case see ftrrther
Adnms, ‘New Orleans as the National Centre of Boxing’, pp.lOG-11 and Somen, 7hr RircofSforfs
pp.178-86.
ill ~j\’nljOdFflllS,
58 JACK ANDERSON

parisli jail for not more than six month, and be fined not more than
five hundred dollars.

Section 2: Be it enacted by the General Assembly of thc State of

Louisiana, that any person who shall agree to fight out of this State,
or shall train in this State to light out of this State, or who shall go or
attempt to go out of this State to fight in any other State, place or
territory, or, being in this State, shall in any way or manner aid, abet
o r assist to fight or attempt to fight out of this State what is
commonly called a prize fight, shall be deemed guilty of a
misdemeanour and be and be punished by imprisonment in the
parish jail for not more than six month, and be fined not more than
five hundred dollars.

Attached to the above sections was the crucial proviso that the Act did ‘not
apply to exhibitions and glove contests between human beings which may
take place within the rooms of regularly chartered athletic clubs’.
The above statute owed much of its construction to Ordinance No. 4336 of
the City of New Orleans adopted by the New Orleans City Council on 5
hIarch 1890:

That exhibitions and glove contests between human beings for the
development of muscular strength be and the same arc hereby
permitted to take place within rooms of all regularly chartered
athletic clubs in the City of New Orleans, provided that at the time
when said exhibitions and glove contests shall take place that the side
or giving of spirituous liquors in said club rooms is hereby
prohibited; and provided fiirther, that all such exhibitions and glove
contests shall be under the supenision of the police authorities of the
City of New Orleans; and provided further, that a glove weighing
not less than five ounccs shall be used in such exhibitions or contests;
. but under no circumstances shall this ordinance be construed as
permitting any sparring contests in such club or clubs on Sunday;
provided further, that for each exhibition the parties shall be
required to donate fifty dollars for fund of public charities of New
Orleans; and that a good and solvent bond of five hundrcd dollars
cash shall be given, to be forfeited in case of any violation of said
ordinance, the proceeds of said forfeitcd bond to go to the said fund
of public chanties.

At trial, the decision turned upon ‘the distinction that is taken in the statute
and ordinance between a glove contest and what is commonly called a prize
 PRIZE FIGIITING IN NINETEENTH CEhTURY AMERICA 59

fight; for upon this distinction depends the criminality cel non of the contests
\vliich took place bctwccn the combatants’.I01 In this, the State’s cases seemed
compclling, and clear cvidcnce was forwarded that the contests werc what
could conimonly be called prize fights. The participants fought to a finish and
blood was drawn. Championships changed hands and both the victor and
vanquished wcrc rcwarded monctarily. In addition, the State noted that
bctwccn Scptcmbcr 1890 and October 1893, scvcntccn bouts of that kind
took place \\-it11 prize money totalling $95,200 of which $86,050 went to the
\\inncrs and S9,150 to the losers.102
The Olympic Club inaintaincd that it promoted ‘scientific and skilful’
exhibitions only. In its defence it contrasted the bloodiness of the John L.
Sullivan v Ryan and Kilrain title fights, fought as prize fights under the
London prizc fighting rulcs, with tlie decorum showed at the Sullivan v
Corljctt bout, as rcgulatcd under thc Quccnsbcrry rules. Aforcowr, with
clever usc of prominent ~vitncsscs,including a college presidcnt, the Ncwv
Orleans cliicf of policc, scvcral lawyers and a host of other ‘reputable citizens’,
thc dcfcncc succeed in convincing the jury that neither the Olympic Club’s
charter nor thc various ordinances and statutcs wcrc brcachcd.
I n Rlay 1891, tlic case was appealed to the Supremc Court of thc Statc of
Louisiana, whcrcin tlic j u d p c n t was aflirmcd. hlr Justicc \\‘atkins obscncd:

m l i c s e contests werc but trials of the skill and powers of physical

endurance between \vcll-equipped athletes, and that, being trained in
this so-called ‘manly art of self-defence’, it was a matter next to
impossibility for one of the contestants to administer, above the belt
of tlic other, any serious physical punishment - fighting, as they did,
with five ounce gloves. That a nose was occasionally made to bleed,
that now and then a lip was left in a swollcn condition, or the face
somcwhat bruised and disfigured, does not alter the case, as like
occurrcnccs are apt to take place in boxing, fencing or football...If,
indecd, such contests are violative of good morals and sound public
policy, tlic matter comes plainly within the prerogative of the
legislative department of the government, which alone can be looked
to for relief.’03

Chief Justice Nicholls agreed with his colleague that in the circumstances the
cliartcr of thc club should not be revoked, holwever, tlie Chief Justice
questioned the prcvious preoccupation with the tcc hnical differences between
a prize fight and a boxing match. The CliicfJustice reminded his colleagues
60 JACK ANDERSON

that as the statute in question was concerned with what was ‘commonly’
called prize fighting, it should have been the popular idea of prizc fighting and
the common meaning and not the idea of professional sportsmen that should
have controlled the courts in dealing with the criminality involved.
Utilising the Chief Justice’s observation, a determined Attorney General
Cunningham sought and was granted a new trial. In the intervening pcriod
between the initial case and what was in effect a re-hearing, the Olympic Club
continued to hold ‘boxing exhibitions’ and continued to abuse the spirit if not
the letter of the law of the state of Louisiana. The second hearing of Stale u
0bm)ic C/ubl@’would go against the club. In the leading opinion, a AIrJustice
hIcEnery remarked that glove contests, when thc object was only for the
display of the art and skills of boxing, were permissible and could continue to
be held in the Olympic Club but that the fights described by the state
authorities, which were invariably fought to a bloody finish, were unlicensed
and illegal prize fights.Ioj Sammons is of the opinion that, ‘The decision
effectively killed prize fighting in Louisiana. Efforts to revive the sport proved
futile as city, parish and state officials strictly applied and enforced the law’.**
It must also be noted that the death of a boxer in a fight held at the
Olympic Club prior to the second appeal strongly influenced the decision. O n
14 December 1891 a fight occurred between Andy Bowen and George ‘Kid’
Lavigne. A good fight had bccn anticipated. Bowen, labelled in some of his
fights as a ‘mulatto’, had already fought in the Olympic Club where on 6
April 1893 he boxed against Jack Burke in a fight that lasted over seven hours,
constituting 110 rounds. The fight ended indecisively as both fighters were
unable to continue due to exhaustion. They sharcd the $2,500 prizc fiind, and
the fight is generally deemed the longest on record in the modern cra. Laigne
was, at that time, an up and coming, exciting lightweight who \vould later
become the first modern lightweight champion when he defeated Dick Burge
in London on 1 June 1896. In the fight itsclf, Lmigne cventually knocked out
the local hero, Bowen, in the eighteenth round. As Bowen fell he hit his hcad
against the ground and died of his injuries the following day. Thc outcry that
followed turned public opinion against the activities of the Olympic Club and
strengthened the resolve of the authorities against prize fighting.
Similar decisions, clamping down on the scope of exhibitions that could be
held by athletic clulx, followed in several hitherto pro-prize fighting states,
Ohio being a prime example.107 For a while professional prize fighting found

IM LouisianaAnnual Repro, 47 (1895), p. 1095.

105 bid., at p.1098.
1% Saninions, B g o n d h Ring, p. 19. See also Adanis, ‘New Orleans as the National Centre of
Boxing’, p. 1 1 1.
107 See, for example, the case In re Athletic Clubs, Ohio SupoiOr and Common Htas Deririonr, 5
(1896), p.696.
 PRIZE FIGHTING IN NINETEENTH CENTURY AhlERICA 61

refuge i n the more relaxed legal climate of the \\rest. For example, the
Calirornia Athletic Club established a solid reputation for prize fighting in San
Francisco in the 1880s and 1890~~~08 while Carson City, Nevada was the host
for the celebrated Bob Rtzsimmons-James J Corbett heavyweight title fight
held on St Patrick’s Day, 1897. Notwithstanding these developments,
professional prize fighters knew that these arrangements in the \ \ ‘ a t were not
sustainnMe. The ‘real’ money was to be made in the East and more
specifically in New York. New York had a massive, concentrated and
interested poptilation. It was the home of the national sporting press and the
city had venues as diverse as Coney Island and hiadison Square Garden.
Nost importantly, New York)s infrastructure better facilitated the
arrangement and promotion of international bouts.
Fortunately for professional prize fighters, the city of New York also missed
them. At the turn of the twentieth century the authorities in New York
initiated scvcral legislative schemes - successively the Horton Laws of 1896,
the Frawlcy Law of 1911 and \\‘alker Laws of 1920 - the last named of which
empowercd the New York State Athletic Commission to become the leading
administrative unit in professional boxing.1m Indeed, the New York ‘model’ of
boxing administration, with its adoption of definitive weight divisions, greater
medical supenision and the licensing of referees and promoters, was quickly
implcmentcd throughout the United States.

XI. Conclusion
Cornmenting on the relationship between the law and prize fighting in the
nineteenth century in the United States Elmer hlillion observed: ‘The history
of prize fight statutes and their interpretation by the courts affords a clear
illustration of the extent to which changing conditions and changing attitudes
arect the enforceability of the criminal law'.^^^ Following a pattern first set in
the United Kingdom, it is clear that prize fighting in the United States during
the period in question avoided the full force of the criminal law by
transforming, sanitising and eventually legitimising itself. The career of John
L. Sullivan specifically encapsulates that shift, and in many respects Sullivan
was dircctly responsible for it. hiore generally, it must be noted that as the
Qucensberry rules became more established and the sport moved from
itinerant, secluded rings to purpose built ‘sporting’ clubs, the various anti-
prize fighting statutes were rendered obsolete. It is suggested that those penal
provisions had been designed to confront a sport that had, in effect,

\\’igSinr, ‘PeterJackson and the Elusive Eleaqweight Championship’, p. 149.

109 Sec generally Steven Reiss, ‘In the Ring and Our:Professional Boxing in Ne\v York, 1896-
1920’, in Donald Spivey, ed., Sporl‘inAmerim new hirfu~ulperspcctites
O\’estport, Conn., 1985),
pp.95-128.
110 AIilIion, ‘Enforceability of Prize Fight Statutes’, p.152.
62 JACK ANDERSON

disappeared. Accordingly, as the professional sport of boxing or sparring with

gloves became more popular, the attitude of the various state legislatures to
that sport had to adapt. At first this involved amending the old anti-prize
fighting statutes in order to exempt ‘sparring contests’ or ‘exhibitions’.
Thereafter, and utilising a model first established in the state of New Yolk, a
licensing scheme \vas adopted. Invariably, this involved the establishment of a
state boxing or athletic commission to regulate both the amateur and
professional strands of the sport. That system largely remains in place to this
day.