The Prison Mirror

PRIMOGENITURESHIP
By Mr. E. H.

Now that Gene, the educated Marine, has publicly announced his abdication of the throne, the new and old pugs are scampering pell-mell in trying to establish their primogenitorship. Lo, and behold! Tommy Loughran, Jack Sharkey, George Godfrey, Johnny Risko, Otto Von Porat, Big Boy Peterson, and others, too numerous to mention, are claiming the right to inherit the title. Why, even W. L. (Young) Stribling, the guy who has had more chances than an out-fielder when there is a bum pitcher in the box, assumes the right to ascend the throne.

Big Boy Peterson, late of Mississippi, but now of Minneapolis and other points in the magnificent Northwest, has met with success against the ham and pugs, but he has yet to meet and defeat a first-class knuckle artist. Otto Von Porat dropped the duke to Young Stribling. Risko took both Godfrey and Sharkey, but he could not get by Stribling.

Tommy Loughran defeated Stribling and Risko, all of which seems to give him the more right to claim the heavyweight crown than any of the aspirants.

From a scientific boxing point of view, Loughran is easily the best of the mediocre bunch, though he be a light hitter, and is devoid of aggressiveness. While it is conceivable, it is highly improbable, that any fighter in the ring today can out-box the Philadelphian. The assertion is made upon the assumption that Tunney has actually retired. [Yes; read his statement in the Mirrorettes.-Ed.]

It has been alluded that Dempsey is planning on re-entering the ring with the express purpose of regaining the championship, an allusion which, if true, indicates more courage than wisdom. Jack Dempsey is "washed up" and, while he is still the best showman in the racket, it would be suicidal to drag the old man into the ring against an ambidexterous boxer like Tommy Loughran.

Even in his prime, Dempsey, the Manassa Mauler, was a primitive toiler who relied solely upon the power of his punches to fetch the bacon home. But alack and alas! his punches no longer leave ruin and devastation in their wake.

Fighting is a young man's game. Youth shall be served--hackneyed, but true.

Rumor has it that Louis Firpo, the Wild Man from Borneo, is contemplating an invasion of this country in quest of fame and fortune. It will readily be recalled that the fuzzy man came over here about five years ago and cleaned up a fortune. Not much of a fighter, but one of the shrewdest business men that ever attacked a dish of corn beef and cabbage. When he goes out with the boys, he spends the evening, and nothing but.

Then, too, there is Paolina Uzcuden, the ax-man who is now a canoeist on the Volga, a river in southeastern Russia, who is also said to be planning to voyage across the pond having the land of the free and the home of free-spending yokels as his objective. It will be interesting to observe the pugs as they endeavor to convince Tex Rickard regarding their primogenitorship.