Basking

Wembley Stadium and some 60,000 Britons basked beneath a cloudless August sky. Out in the centre of 26 the arena, on a platform hedged with ropes, a creature with a "splendidly white skin and a figure that would suggest a Greek god to a woman novelist," lay flat upon the canvas and basked with them.

Had this creature's eyes been open he would have seen airplanes circling in the heavens, gay flags and bunting flying from the Stadium flagpoles. He would have heard a vast roar of many voices in the grandstands. But his eyes were tight shut. His ears heard nothing. He was not conscious. The basking man was Jack Bloomfield, onetime light heavyweight boxing champion of Europe, knocked horizontal by the hammering face, rib and head blows of Tom Gibbons, of St. Paul, Minn., in the third round of what had been scheduled as a 20-round fight. The winner surveyed his handiwork, returned to his dressing room, ate ice-cream.

Gibbons, the "phantom" who lasted 15 rounds against Dempsey last summer at Shelby, Mont., received -L-10,000 for seven minutes' work. Basking Boxer Bloomfield was given -L-6,000.