[1] The exceptions are in “Right Prove Distance” (p. 13) and No. Seven Cut (p. 16). In the other Cuts the thumb “grasps the handle.”
[2] The French divide l’Escrime into two parts: (1) Escrime à l’épée, or Escrime pointe; and (2) Escrime au sabre, or Escrime contrepointe.
[3] The question is considered at great length in my forthcoming volume entitled ‘The Sword:’ here it is sufficient simply to state results.
[4] When every regiment shall have its salle d’armes, the fencer will modify his own fencing thrusts to suit the clumsier weapon. I do not, however, see any reason why the three Points of the Infantry Sword Exercise should not be delivered in the posizione media of the Italian school, with the thumb upwards and extended along the back of the sword-handle: nor why, as in the French Manuel, they should not be reduced to a single Coup de Pointe (p. 239), which is thus described. “Baisser la pointe du sabre à hauteur de la poitrine et déployer le bras en tournant la main, le pouce en dessous, le tranchant du sabre en dessus.”
[5] As Mr. John Latham justly says (“The Shape of Sword-blades,” ‘Journal of the Royal United Service Institution,’ vol. vi.):—“The proper shape for a thrusting sword is pre-eminently straight.” The Clay-more, for instance, moving in a direct line, cuts a hole exactly the size of the blade; the Regulation sword, slightly curved, widens it to about double, and the bent scimitar and the Talwár, to five or six times, thus meeting with five or six times the resistance to its penetration. Mr. Latham is again quoted in another part of this System.
[6] My only objections to this volume are the two following:—
(a) The author will “throw the whole weight of the body on the left leg.” (Fig. 2, p. 69.) Yet in his Introductory Remarks (p. 5) he sensibly says, “To the haunches, as to the common centre of motion of the human figure, are ultimately referred all the movements performed in military tactics” (and swordsmanship); “as just poise is important to the correct exertion of action, whatever it may be, it is necessary that poise or balance be studied, understood, and tried in all positions. It is clear that bodily action cannot possess compass, power, and ease, unless the movement be made justly and correctly upon the haunches, as on a central pivot. If the movement have not compass, power, and ease; force and endurance will not be found in the Military act.”
(b) In the Lunge our author not only keeps the body “perfectly erect,” he even inclines it backwards whilst he allows both feet to abandon the perpendicular in the most slovenly way: see Fig. 2, p. 70, and Figs. 1 and 2, p. 71. The same is the case with the official ‘Infantry Sword Exercise.’
[7] My old friend and instructor set out upon a thoroughly scientific principle, and the able way in which he has worked out his system will entitle him to the gratitude of the posteri. Having established the fact that in all our popular athletic, as opposed to gymnastic, exercises, our walking and running, cricket and football, fives, tennis, and racquets, and especially rowing—which has advanced as an art but has declined as an exercise—we circumscribe the line of muscular operation by giving the greatest share of the work to the lower limbs, and by developing one half to the injury of the other; he resolved to cultivate the whole by a wider and more varied range of training; hence he supplemented “Recreative exercise” by “Educational exercise,” and hence his systematized national gymnasia, which, taken up by H.R.H. the Duke of Cambridge and by the late Sidney Herbert, have been introduced into the military stations of the Cardwell system, into Oxford and Cambridge, and into all our public schools, with one “base exception”—Eton.
Mr. MacLaren, in his ‘System of Fencing.’ &c. (p. 9), sensibly advocates “resting the weight of the body equally upon both legs.” He also lowers the right hand in the Lunge (p. 11), and (ibid.) he throws the trunk forward, perhaps with a little exaggeration.