The Gentlewoman's Book of Sports

One would hear considerably less of hysteria, of morphine-mania, and of other regrettable characteristics of fin-de-siecle existence, if women were to take to fencing as one of the regular occupations of their dayPierre de Coubertin, founder of the modern Olympic Games, said in 1896: "No matter how toughened a sportswoman may be, her organism is not cut out to sustain certain shocks." Women compet...