Boxing

Pugilistic gentlemen the country over spent a lively week. Those whose hands were not busy administering cut lips and swollen ears, gesticulated in airy explanation, signed contracts, punched bags and sparring partners.

At Buffalo, hulking Homer Smith, Kalamazoo heavyweight, spent an evening knocking down Battling Siki, polygamous Sengalese. Next day, Siki's left eye was such a different color from the rest of his face, and of such an unusual shape, that he repaired to the New York Boxing Commission and postponed his en counter with Jock McDonald, sched uled for four days later.

In Jersey City, painters and carpenters swarmed about inside a great pinewood saucer, patching, prinking and tidying. They were employed by the saucer's lessee, Promoter Rickard. He expects tens of thousands of customers to go and sit in it on Sept. 11 to see 425 pounds, of humanity in violent gyration--Harry Wills and Bull Firpo.

At Preston, Eng., a nervous wreck crawled into his bed, refused to communicate with newspaper reporters. This wreck was Maj. Arnold Wilson, promoter of the light heavyweight fight between Tom Gibbons, of St. Paul, and "Basking" Jack Bloomfield, of England, in Wembley Stadium (TIME, Aug. 11). Reasons for the Major's breakdown were that his balance sheet showed a loss of some -L-12,000; that Tom Gibbons, sailing for the U. S., had instructed attorneys to collect a missing -L-8,061 of -L-10,000 promised him by the Major: and his friends.