The Welcome Prize Fighters

New York, 1895

Dick Phelan Knocks Out Barney Lynch in the Eleventh Round.

Quite a large crowd of sporting men saw the finish fight on Saturday night which was successfully pulled off just over the Brooklyn city line in Queens county. The principals were Barney Lynch of Newark, and Dick Phelan of Brooklyn. Both weighed in below the limit set for the match, 131 pounds, at 6 o'clock in the evening, Lynch being a little the heavier. Capt. Jack Mace, Ridgewood A. C., was the referee.

The first round was productive of only light sparring, but in the second the lads warmed up to their work, and Phelan got home some pretty two-handers that set the crowd to applauding. In the third round Lynch began to do some of the fast fighting that he is capable of, and cut Phelan's right eye with a hot left-hand jab. Phelan came up the fresher for the fourth round and rushed his man all over the ring. Lynch was floored by a savage right-hander and badly punished about the body. Lynch assumed the aggressive in the fifth round, but it was only momentary, for Phelan used both hands very swiftly, and Lynch was glad to break ground and run around the ring. The latter was knocked out in the eleventh round with a right-hander flush on the chin.

Are the prize fighters paying for immunity in this county? If not, why are they tolerated?


Note: The point is that prizefighting was illegal there, but the authorities seemed to be turning a blind eye to it. The Farmer newspaper was against prizefighting and trying to make the authorities do something about it.


Burglars in a Silk Mill

The Rhenania silk mills, of College Point, were entered by burglars Thursday night and over $500 worth of dyed silks were stolen.

—The Long Island Farmer, Jamaica, NY, March 8, 1895, p. 1.