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HE records of the old Spanish mission at Santa Barbara prove that he was christened Manuel Carlos Rodriguez, but it was not under that mouthful of musical syllables that he rose in the world, the first Mexican pugilist of prominence. We now have several swarthy battlers—some of them very good ones and some very bad—but it was Manuel (pronounce that Mon-well, please) who blazed the new trail and demonstrated that a Mexican does not always need a knife when he goes to war. Like the average drug clerk, Manuel had something just as good, if not better. His right hand carried the anaesthetic when delivered from any possible angle—uppercut, hook, cross, jab, or swing. If all Mexicans were similarly gifted our champions would hail from the sister republic, and Sheffield would be forced to find a new market for her cutlery.

Manuel Carlos began fighting at the mature age of seven, not because he liked it but because he attended a public school where the "railroad Irish" predominated. "Licking the greasers" was a daily diversion, and Manuel furnished