Burns, then, was Heavy-weight Champion of the World, and was, in the course of nature, liable to be challenged to fight for his title. And there had come into prominence a huge negro, Jack Johnson, who was anxious to fight Burns. In England we had hitherto heard very little of Johnson. He was three years older than the white champion, stood 6 feet and one-half inch, and weighed 15 stone. He appears to have started his career in 1899, and from that year down to December, 1908, when he finally succeeded in getting a match with Burns, he had fought sixty-five contests, half of which he won by means of a knock-out. Excepting Peter Jackson, he was about as good a black boxer as had ever been known. He was very strong, very quick, a hard hitter, and extraordinarily skilful in defence. He was by no means unintelligent, and, not without good reason, was regarded generally with the greatest possible dislike. With money in his pocket and physical triumph over white men in his heart, he displayed all the gross and overbearing insolence which makes what we call the buck nigger insufferable. He was one of the comparatively few men of African blood who, in a half-perceiving way, desire to make the white man pay for the undoubted ill-treatment of his forbears. Whether Tommy Burns really wanted to avoid Johnson or not it is difficult to say. Certainly, it seemed as though he did. Or, on the other hand, the long procrastination may have been deliberate, with the end in view of rousing public excitement, to its uttermost pitch of intensity: and thus, perhaps, of acquiring more pelf. Burns succeeded, at all events, in rousing the public impatience and irritation which immediately precedes boredom. And it would be a dull business to trace the whole story of Johnson’s efforts to get into a ring with him. It is enough to say that he finally succeeded, a match was made, and the two men entered the ring at Rushcutter’s Bay, Sydney, New South Wales, on December 26th, 1908. As so often happens in a black and white affair, feeling ran very high, and it was feared by responsible people that black, in the person of Jack Johnson, would not on this occasion get a fair chance. But as the event proved, the fight was perfectly fair--in that sense, and we may be sure that Johnson was well cared for and guarded. Interference by the police was by way of being expected, and it was arranged before the contest that if the police did stop the fight in its course, the referee would give a decision on the merits of the encounter up to the moment of interference.