O'Donnell, Steve
  Boxing Lesson Punch Card
  Mr. Quackenbush (student)
  Peterson, Maud Howard (author “The Potter and the Clay”)

  Though a big man at 6 foot plus and 190 pounds, Steve O’Donnell stood as a practitioner of the more scientific aspects of the “Sweet Science” before the turn of the 20^th Century.  From Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, O’Donnell had fought for the Australian heavyweight title against Ned Ryan at the California Athletic Club in his hometown in February 1893 before venturing to America to ply the brutal trade.  He last appeared professionally against Walter Johnson in Gloucester, Mass. in late 1904, though there had been sparse work in the ring since before the years numbered in the 1900s.  At the peak of his career, he was one of 2 chosen to compete for the world heavyweight crown surrendered by Gentleman Jim Corbett, with whom O’Donnell often sparred, in 1895.  The fight against Peter Maher was 1^st slated for the Florida Club in Dallas, Texas, immediately before the legal wheels of the state from the governor on down declared the whole sport a menace, banning pugilism statewide.  When the pair finally met in Queens, New York later in November, the Australian went down hard in the 1^st round of a scheduled 25.  The rest of the Aussie big man’s career was spent in exhibitions against Corbett and serious losses in the professional ring, including 4 more to Maher through 1900.  O’Donnell’s final record reads 68 total fights, with 22 wins (19 knockouts), 10 losses (7 down), with 9 drawn and 2 newspaper decisions against him.
  This lesson card was “Good for six boxing lessons by Steve O’Donnell,” though “not good after 15 days from the date above” and Not Transferable.”  It has 4 of 6 punches and penciled notes on the reverse providing reference to a specific edition of a novel, The Potter and the Clay, the American Lothrop edition priced at $1.50 in 1901, by Maud Howard Peterson.  A review in “The Spectator” (23 November 1901) of the British edition (published by Hodder & Stoughton for 6s) describes a romantic tale set in America, Scotland and India about the lives of 3 children, the 2 boys maturing into soldiers who are both in love with the girl they knew as they fight through colonial India.  The title is a common Biblical image from several passages in Isaiah in the Old Testament that are the source of the trope (metaphor, reference or lyric symbolism) in gospel songs and church hymns.