One More Challenge to Allen—Return to the Oil Country—Ben and McDonald—Opens Dance House in Elks City—Bullion House—Kitty Runs away.
While our hero was in Grand Rapids he made still another effort to bring about a match with Tom Allen. To effect this end, he published a challenge of which the subjoined is a verbatim copy:
“Mr. Tom Allen, St. Louis.
“Dear Sir: Noting in the Chicago Times of the 3d instant, in an account of the fights you have been engaged in, a reference to myself, which is both unprofessional and ungentlemanly, written by your trainer, and instigated, as I believe, by yourself, I hasten to put myself aright before the public.
“I had retired, as I hoped, permanently from the ring, with loathing and disgust of the practice, but cannot permit so insulting an allusion to myself to pass unnoticed. I hereby challenge you to meet me in the ring at any point within fifty miles of Detroit, in Canada, for fun, simply to decide who is the better man. I will pay, on a week’s notice, your expenses to Detroit.
“If you prefer not to fight for sport, but money, I will agree to fight you for one thousand dollars a side, within three months from this date, which is more than is at stake in your coming mill with Goss.
“You promised to meet me in the winter of 1875, in a barn on Thirty-second street, New York, to fight for a purse of one thousand dollars. You excused yourself to go and change your clothes, and never came back. You published a card in a Pittsburg paper, boasting that you had driven me out of New York. I was in that city two months afterwards. You were then matched to fight Rourke, but the engagement never came off. In the summer of ’75 I challenged you to fight me near Pittsburg, when you claimed to have retired from the ring. Now that you have again entered the ring, I tender the above challenge, simply requesting that not more than twenty-five friends of either party shall witness the engagement.
“Yours truly,
“Ben Hogan.”
This fair and manly offer, which certainly gave Allen an opportunity to prove his metal, had he cared to do so, was not accepted. Ben, tired of his attempts to bring the redoubtable pugilist to terms, made no further efforts to bring about a meeting.
Shortly afterward he left Grand Rapids, and returned East, striking his old home, Syracuse. There, in company with Charley McDonald, he filled a week’s engagement at Barton’s Opera House, giving highly successful sparring exhibitions.