The boxing booth: chat with Professor H. Cullis
[As printed in Boxing, 1 September 1926]
There cannot be many of the proprietors of the old travelling boxing academies, to wit, the booth, still strutting their paces on life's stage, and yet those personages played big parts in assisting Britishers to hold their own and a bit more against foreigners in the exchanging of buffets with upholstered fists. And none performed a fuller share in this direction than Harry Cullis, of Wolverhampton, who took under his sheltering wings many promising chicks with an aptitude for fighting, and turned them out better perfect [sic] in the art of "hitting, stopping, and getting away in correct fashion." He believed, and still believes, in a lad starting on the lowest rung of the ladder.
"That's where you find out if they are game and can face the music," said the weather-beaten old "Professor" when I met him in Birmingham the other day. "If all the boxers started in a booth, which is the only real boxing school, where the boys have to learn or get out, we should not have the retirements when lads find the battle going against 'em. They have only to hurt one of their little fingers to entitle them, they think, to retire, and this against foreigners. It makes me feel very ill when I read of it. I have seen, in my booth, boxers take all the gruel a man could give them with my old 'tools' (gloves), teeth knocked out, both mince pies (eyes) closed, 'beak' (nose) broken, and very likely a fractured arm, and then they were ashamed to give in. I've seen such wonderful things happen in that there booth of mine that folks would not believe if I took my oath on it."
Real "needle" fights
"Young chaps who had fallen out most likely over a gal, would come to me and ask me to let 'em fight it out with the smallest and hardest gloves I had. I used to tell 'em that they could have four rounds, but they'd better wait till the night and bring their pals with 'em. That is how I got some of my best 'houses'. Up they'd roll, and if a gal was at the bottom of it, she'd be there likely enough shouting advice to the chap she wanted to win, and taking his attention off his man and very likely getting him a good hiding."
"This happened many times, but once a factory girl who had quarrelled with her young man promised to walk out with another one if he would beat her old flame with the gloves. He did so in my booth, but no sooner had he 'outed' his rival and left the stage to escort 'the woman in the case' from my booth than she turned round on him, called him all the uncomplimentary names she could think of, told him that she would not trust herself in the company of such an unfeeling brute, and turned to where her original flame was having his bruised features bathed, kissed him and assisted in making him presentable. Then arm-in-arm they left the booth, but what happened afterwards I don't know."
Some of the best in England
"I've had some of the best boxers in England travel with me. There was Jim Driscoll, who was matched by me against Joe Bowker, and I say now he was the cleverest and nicest boy who ever put a foot on my stage. Then I had Tom Thomas of Wales, another winner of a Lonsdale belt. Jabez White, Owen Moran, Morgan Crowther, Harry Mansfield, Charlie Exhall, Matt and Fred Precious, George Phelan (now Birmingham's Premier promoter), Arthur Akers, and many more."
"The war killed my booth trade, but it seems like coming again, as I have been doing pretty well round the Black Country lately. But it's getting the lads to work for you. They want to learn boxing and have plenty of practice, but they won't stand the rough life like the old 'uns did, and got as hard as nails on it as well."
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