Georges Carpentier was born at Lens, in the Pas de Calais, in January of 1894. His father was a collier, and the boy, directly he was old enough (which probably meant long before he was old enough), followed his father underground and worked as a pit-boy, earning his five francs a week. At about this time a jovial little man whose face is now as familiar as Carpentier’s, François Descamps by name, was managing a gymnasium in the town. It was at this time that a wave of athleticism was passing over Northern France, and the boys of Lens, Carpentier amongst them, used to regard this gymnasium as their chief amusement after work hours. Amongst other exercises, Descamps encouraged a certain amount of boxing--“English” boxing. _La Savate_ had practically died out, and the days when “Charlemagne” the Frenchman, “kicked out” Jerry Driscoll, the ex-sailor (amongst whose pupils have been some of the best of the English amateurs) were unlikely to return. Still, though boxing was at this time a popular enough show in Paris, few Frenchmen themselves actually boxed, and Descamps was, in providing gloves at his gymnasium, rather in advance of his time. Descamps forbade the use of these gloves by boys whom he had not yet taught, and when one evening he caught young Carpentier thrashing a much bigger boy with them and by the light of nature, he rated him soundly: but he kept an eye on him. He was a natural fighter. It soon became apparent that he _must_ fight; the inward urging was there, insistent and never for long to be denied. And the boy, all untaught, could defend himself. [Illustration: _Photo: “Sport and General.”_ Joe Beckett.] Before very long Descamps, who interviewed the child’s parents, overcame their natural scepticism by paying them the weekly five francs the lad had been earning at the mine, and undertook his training as an athlete, sending him out into the fresh air instead of into the pit, teaching him all he himself knew about the science of fisticuffs. Mr. F. H. Lucas, the author of _From Pit-Boy to Champion Boxer_, makes it plain that if ever there was an authentic instance of a fairy godfather stepping into a boy’s life and changing it in a day from gloom to unalloyed delight, it is the instance of Descamps and Carpentier. The young Frenchman had an unique opportunity of succeeding well, for he was by Descamps’s interference enabled to follow the pursuit he liked best from his boyhood onwards; and underwent, owing to that fact, a unique training, adapted as it was to that end and to that end alone. It is unnecessary to trace Carpentier’s career from the time he won his first success against an American boxer in a travelling booth and became “Champion” of France at 7 stone 2 lb., and at the age of fourteen, until he beat the Heavy-weight Champion of England, when he was but nineteen and no more than a middle-weight.