Carpentier served in the French Flying Corps during the war, but though four years or more were taken from the best of his boxing life, he did not forget how to box. During the “gap” he engaged in no recorded contests, but no doubt did a certain amount of sparring. He had gained weight and lost no ground when the war ended. During 1919 and 1920, he fought five times, knocking out five men, including Dick Smith, Joe Beckett, and Battling Levinsky. Meanwhile, in July, 1919, Jack Dempsey had knocked out Jess Willard in three rounds for the World’s Championship, and Carpentier challenged him.

“Jack Dempsey” is a nom de guerre, presumably taken (since there is as yet no copyright in names) from that older Jack Dempsey who began boxing in the early eighties, and lost the World’s Middle-weight title to Bob Fitzsimmons, who knocked him out in fifteen rounds in 1891.

The new Jack Dempsey was born in 1895, and his record shows that until the end of 1920 he had fought upwards of sixty contests, fifty-eight of which he won, mainly by knocking his opponents out in the first or second rounds. He weighs 13? stone, and stands just a shade under 6 feet. That is to say, he was a stone and a half heavier than Carpentier; much longer in reach. Dempsey is a very miracle of strength and hardness.

It seemed an absurd match. If an animal analogy may be allowed, it was like a young leopard against a gorilla. There are, of course, innumerable accidents in boxing, chance blows and slight injuries which turn the tide of battle, an “off” day, a fault in training; but it may be laid down as a general rule that 184 when character and strength are equal the man with the more skill wins, when skill and strength are equal, character wins, when character and skill are equal, strength wins. So it was now. Both Carpentier and Dempsey were natural fighters, both were scientific boxers, though Carpentier was more skilled than his opponent, both wanted to win, but Dempsey was immensely stronger than the Frenchman.

The contest took place at New Jersey, U.S.A., on July 2, 1921. A very small ring was used, no more than eighteen feet square. The number of rounds was limited to twelve, but it was recognised beyond the possibility of doubt that so many as twelve would not be required to settle the matter.

The moving pictures of the event show Carpentier sitting in his corner, nodding and smiling while his gloves are being put on. His grin is wide. Then with the suddenness of the camera’s own shutter, it ceases. For an instant the whole face is still, the mouth closes in thin-lipped anxiety, the eyes are set, and when you see the smile break out again you know that it is deliberate, not spontaneous. In fact Georges Carpentier was acutely nervous. Who, of his size and in his shoes, would not have been? You have but to glance at the man in the opposite corner, and you shake at the very thought of being in Carpentier’s shoes at that moment. Thirteen and a half stone may mean very little; it may mean a hulking fellow who can’t hit, let alone take punishment: it may mean a hulking fellow who can hit hard, but who can do nothing else. But the thirteen and a half stone of Dempsey meant a man in perfect condition, who could hit as few men can, who was extraordinarily hard and strong and almost impossible to hurt. Thirteen and a half stone of bone and muscle, not bone and muscle and fat. No fat at all. All hard stuff; not easy rippling muscle like Carpentier’s, but very solid and tough and extremely serviceable.

Dempsey had left himself unshaven for several days, so that the skin of his face should not be tender, thereby gaining, besides, a horribly malign appearance. And he scowled, and when the two of them stood up he made Carpentier look a 185 little man. Dempsey was not popular in America owing to his avoidance of military service during the war. Seeing him in the ring, unless the photographic films have lied, he looked the very incarnation of sullen rage and brute force. In private life he is an amiable man, fresh-faced and modest. He had much more than brute force: he was a skilled and terrific basher. Strength for strength, Dempsey could, as you might say, “eat” Carpentier.

And they gave rather the appearance of the child and the ogre in the ring. Carpentier seemed unable to defend himself against the shattering onslaught of the American, and there was much clinching in the first round. The smaller man greatly surprised the spectators by going in and fighting at once, instead of trying to keep away and let Dempsey tire himself, which seemed to be the obvious course to pursue. He had not the strength to stop the majority of Dempsey’s blows, especially the upper-cuts which came crashing through his guard. He tried the trick of boxing with his chin on the big man’s chest, but even so his body suffered the more. It was, as a matter of irrelevant fact, Carpentier who scored the first hits, a left on the face and an upper-cut with the right, neither of which had any effect at all. During a clinch the champion gave his opponent a dig in the stomach which reduced his strength immediately. This he followed by a hard, very short blow on the back of the head, given whilst Carpentier was holding close. From the position in which two men stand in a clinch, such a blow cannot be given with the whole weight of the body. The glove can travel only five o............