Those of you who were thinking of going to see the Sullivan-Ryan sparring match on January 19, 1885, at Madison Square Garden (the first one, that is), don’t bother, the fight will be stopped by police inspector Thorne within less than 30 seconds. Said The Sun:
John L. Sullivan‘s magic name was posted on the walls and printed in the papers yesterday and 10,000 men flocked to Madison Square Garden, as grains of steel to a magnet. Some came in sealskin coats, their faces flushed with good dining and carelessly paid $10 for a box, comforted by the thought that they still had a million of so left. More paid at the rate of $2 for a seat and the thousands paid a dollar each, and as they handed it out prepared a mighty anathema to drop upon the heads of everybody if the match should prove a fizzle.
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Sullivan, the Boston Strong Boy, who two years later would become the first heavyweight championship of the world, looked like he again would again make short work of Paddy Ryan when the police, under pressure from Mayor William R. Grace, stepped in. As the first Irish Catholic mayor, Grace—a moral reformer—wanted to put a stop to the view of Irish-Americans as loutish.
Then everything changed. Sullivan’s face grew ugly and his eyes blazed with fury. The two men rushed together and for three seconds thundering blows were exchanged on either side regardless of science or law. Sullivan was hit on the face and neck but seemed to mind it no more than a puff of wind. He made no attempt at self-defence, but showered his bows on Ryan’s chest and ribs with savage ferocity.
Just as it seemed that Ryan must go down under the terrible punishment a portly form was seen climbing through the ropes and Inspector Thorne’s arm and club were stretched between the men.
If you’re in the city that evening, you might fare better at the Cercle Français de l’Harmonie’s annual shindig, over at the Academy of Music on 14th street, where “the best and the worst, the highest and the lowest, the most respected and the least regarded, danced, flirted, ate, drank, hurrahed together,” commented The Herald, branding it a “corker from Corkville.”
Tbe ball per se was all right, but the ballists were frequently all wrong. One doesn’t look for much decorum, for any degree of ceremony, on the floor of a French ball room, but last night’s performances rather stepped beyond the line of prudence, and decency was often put to the blush, not alone by the merry maskers upon the floor, but by tbe outrageous iconoclasts in the boxes.
