The “sucker” hauled off and caught Tim with a beautiful right on the whiskers and down went the Garden promoter right into the lap of Big Jim Mitchell, the hammer thrower, who was then writing for the _Morning Sun_. The offended patron happened to be Arthur Pelkey, the man who two years later caused the accidental death of Luther McCarty in a “white hope” match in Calgary, Canada. He had never met Tim Hurst and Tim had never laid eyes on Arthur, but after the blow was struck, some of the scribes recognized the fighter and a handshake ended further arguments. Pelkey recovered his coat a few hours later when the culprit who stole it was found sleeping on it in the basement. Johnny Broderick, successor to Sheridan as head detective in the old Garden, told me many times that before Tex Rickard’s regime, probably half of the rogues gallery could be located between dusk and dawn at a six-day race. Overcoat stealing was so common as to pass without comment. During those races, members of the homicide squad were assigned to patrol the Garden in pairs, and many fugitives from justice were picked up. * * * * * Of course, as I fondly recollect the early Garden days, not all my interesting sports experiences as a reporter in the big city took place there. For example, I was very much involved in the development of distance swimming in the New York area. Sitting around in the office of the New York _Press_ one night, after the first edition had gone to press, the conversation turned to the diving exploits of the shapely Australian, Annette Kellerman, who at the time was hitting the headlines with her wonderful performances. From diving we passed on to swimming, and then to distance swimming. We spoke of the great Capt. Matthew Webb, the Englishman who was the first to swim the Channel. Webb had tried to swim from the Battery in New York to Sandy Hook, a distance comparable to the Channel crossing, and had failed. I decided that night that I was going to find an American who could make that Sandy Hook swim. The first candidate for the job was Louis Durborrow, a Philadelphia bank clerk who had earned himself a formidable distance swimming reputation in the Delaware River. Louis quickly accepted the suggestion that he attempt the New York Harbor crossing. I organized the effort, and at dawn on a warm, sunny, Sunday morning, Louis jumped off the dock at the Battery and headed for the Hook with Dan Daniel and myself following in a hired fishing boat. The treacherous currents proved to be too much for Durborrow, however, and he was forced to quit. Some weeks later, he failed again. Then he tried to swim from the Hook to the Battery, but this, too, ended in failure for the bank clerk. On each occasion, Daniel and I were the only reporters who accompanied the swimmer.