Death of Welsh

A chunky little Welshman named Frederick Hall Thomas, who had used the name of Freddie Welsh because he was proud of his race, who was for three years (1914-17) lightweight boxing champion of the world, lay on his face on the bedroom floor of a cheap Manhattan hotel, last week. He was alone and he was dead. On his bed was a copy of a biography of Elbert Hubbard, opened at a page containing, among other passages, the sentence: "Get your happiness out of your work, or you will never know what happiness is."

Physicians said that his death was due to heart disease. His wife, with whom he had not been living for several years, had another theory. Said she: "This is a hard-boiled age. . . . Freddie knew them all when he was at the top, but none of them knew him when he was down and out. It was his heart that killed him, all right. It was broken."'

Mr. Welsh's brother, Arthur Stanley Thomas, insisted that Freddie was not down and out at the time of his death, that he owned $130,000 worth of real estate.

In Pontypridd, Wales, 41 years ago, Freddie Welsh was born. He fought his first boxing bout at 19, quickly stepped to the front as a great defensive artist. In 1914 he won the world's lightweight title from Willie Ritchie. His best year was 1916 when he defeated Benny Leonard, Ritchie, Mitchell, Ever Hammer, Ad Wolgast, Charlie White. In 1917 he experienced his only knockout, lost the championship to Leonard.

Retiring from the prize ring, he bought a health farm in Summit, N. J. The farm went to rack and ruin while Mr. Welsh went off to war.

Later, he did reconstruction work at the Walter Reed Hospital in Washington, D. C., trained officers at Plattsburg.

They laid Mr. Welsh out at an undertaking parlor in his U. S. Army uniform, captain's rank. Actors, ball players, politicians and 1,500 miscellaneous came to see him. Soldiers escorted him to a crematorium. Among his pallbearers were Benny Leonard, Johnny Dundee, Middleweight Champion Mickey Walker, Light Heavyweight Champion Mike McTigue. Jack Dempsey, against whom Mrs. Welsh had railed, saying Mr. Welsh had once defended him against "slacker" charges only to be ignored last week when he asked Mr. Dempsey to pay a sickroom call, telegraphed flowers from California.