INTRODUCTORY.
Our neighbours on the other side of the English Channel have
been accused of calling us a “nation of shopkeepers.” No doubt the
definition is not bad; and, so long as the goods supplied bear the
hall-mark of British integrity, there is nothing to be ashamed of
in the appellation; still, with all due deference, I think we might
more appropriately be called a nation of sportsmen.
There is not an English boy breathing at this moment who does
not long to be at some sport or game, and who has not his pet idea
of the channel into which he will guide his sporting proclivities
when he is a man. There are not many grown Englishmen who don’t
think they know something about a horse, would not like to attend a
good assault-at-arms, or who are not pleased when they hear of
their sons’ prowess with the oar, the bat, or the
gloves.
I may be quite mistaken, but it always seems to me that the
well-brought-up little foreign boy is too unwholesomely good and
gentle to fight the battle of life. Still, such little boys
do grow up brave and clever men, and
they do , taken collectively,
make splendid soldiers.
Then, as to sports, foreigners seem to put too much pomp and
circumstance into their efforts in pursuit of game; the impedimenta
and general accoutrements are overdone; but here again I may be
wrong.
Of one thing we may be quite sure, and that is that the
majority of Englishmen are devoted to sport of
some kind . One of the prettiest little
compliments you can pay a man is to call him “a good old
sportsman.”
When, in addition to the advantages of a national sport or
collection of national sports, such as boxing, sword exercises,
wrestling, etc., you recognize the possibility that the games you
have been indulging in with your friends in playful contests may at
almost any moment be utilized for defeating your enemies and
possibly saving your life, you are forced to the conclusion that
there are some sports at least which can be turned to practical
account.
Unfortunately there are individuals, possibly in the small
minority, who regard anything like fighting as brutal or
ungentlemanly. In a sense—a very limited sense—they may be right,
for, though our environment is such that we can never rest in
perfect security, it does seem hard that we should have to be
constantly on the alert to protect that which we think is ours by
right, and ours alone.
However this may be, let us be men
first , and aristocrats, gentlemen, or
anything else you please, afterwards
. If we are not men, in the larger and better sense of the
word, let there be no talk of gentle blood or lengthy pedigree. The
nation is what it is through the pluck and energy of individuals
who have put their shoulders to the wheel in bygone days—men who
have laid the foundation of a glorious empire by sturdy personal
efforts—efforts, unaided by the state, emanating from those higher
qualities of the character, relying on itself, and on itself alone,
for success or failure.
From the earliest times, and in the most primitive forms of
animal life, physical efforts to obtain the mastery have been
incessant.
Whether it is in the brute creation or the human race, this
struggle for existence has always required the exercise of
offensive and defensive powers. The individual has striven to gain
his living, and to protect that living when gained; nations have
paid armies to increase their territories, and retain those
territories when acquired.
The exact form of weapon which first came into use will
always be doubtful, but one would think that stones, being hard and
handy, as well as plentiful, might have presented irresistible
attractions to, say, some antediluvian monster, who wished to
intimate to a mammoth or icthyosaurus, a few hundred yards distant,
his readiness to engage in mortal combat.
Are there not stories, too, of clever little apes in tropical
forests who have pelted unwary travellers with nuts, stones, and
any missiles which came handy?
Then, coming nearer home, there is the lady at an Irish fair
who hangs on the outskirts of a faction-fight, ready to do
execution with a stone in her stocking—a terrible gog-magog sort of
brain-scatterer.
When man was developed, no doubt one of his first ideas was
to get hold of a really good serviceable stick—not a little modern
masher’s crutch—a strong weapon, capable of assisting him in
jumping, protecting him from wild beasts, and knocking down his
fellow-man.
To obtain such a stick the primitive man probably had to do a
good deal of hacking at the bough of a hard oak or tough ash, with
no better knife than a bit of sharp flint. Having secured his
stick, the next thing was to keep it, and he doubtless had to
defend himself against the assaults of envious fellow-creatures
possessed of inferior sticks.
Thus we can imagine that the birth of quarter-staff play—not
much play about it in those
days—was a very simple affair; and we recognize in it the origin
and foundation of all the sword exercises, and all the games in
which single-stick, lance, and bayonet play a prominent
part.
As the question of who picked up the first stone and threw it
at his fellow-man, or when the first branch of a tree was brought
down on the unsuspecting head of another fellow-man, are questions
for learned men to decide, and are of no real importance, I shall
not allow myself to go on with any vague speculations, but shall
turn at once to an old English sport which, though sometimes
practised at assaults-at-arms in the present day, takes us back to
Friar Tuck, Robin Hood, and
“ Maid Marian, fair as ivory bone,
Scarlet and Much and Little John.”
