FIRST MEETING WITH ROBERT SIEVIER 



thoroughly to appreciate England when he came over 

 here to settle many years ago now. He liked the 

 difference in the life, especially when racing was over. 

 I have heard him explain it several times. In England 

 it is possible to forget that there is such a thing as 

 racing when the day is finished, but after many of the 

 up-country meetings in Australia there is no distrac- 

 tion whatever except cards and billiards. The Thomp- 

 sons ever had quite the artistic temperament. There 

 were two other brothers. Jack and Harry, the former of 

 the two was a very fine amateur boxer. He was a very 

 splendid stamp of man, standing nearly six feet three, 

 and could put the gloves on with the best of them, 

 having, too, a grand muscular development. If he 

 had taken it up seriously, it was generally said, he 

 might have made a champion. They were very keen 

 on boxing in Sydney, and round at Larry Foley's 

 there were some great men brought along — Peter 

 Jackson and Frank Slavin in particular. The latter 

 was a coach-builder up at Muswellbrook, about sixty 

 or seventy miles north of Newcastle, in New South 

 Wales. Of course he was " discovered," for Larry 

 Foley was a past master in bringing them along. They 

 were always very keen, but in those days there were 

 not the public matches there are to-day ; in fact, there 

 was not a bob in boxing unless one of the men could 

 get a backer to take him out of the country. I could 

 never understand the backing which the New Zealander 

 Slade obtained. He was a beautiful stamp of man, 

 but no good at all as a fighter. There were some pretty 

 tough nuts around Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, 

 and one had to keep on the alert pretty well ; how- 

 ever, if there was not much to lose there were ideas to 

 be picked up to make a bit. 



It used to make me weep to see some of the chaps 

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