MASK AND FOIL FOR LADIES.
By CHARLES E. CLAY.
AMONG the infant nations of the world woman was expected to share the labors of the field with her lord. The exotic conditions of a pernicious civilization, as wealth accumulated and luxury grew, imposed trammels on woman and relegated her to the enervating confinement of the house in order that she might preserve a more delicate and pleasing form for the gratification of man returning after the day’s toil. Woman was, however, originally intended to be a much more competent companion and helpmate than the selfishness of man will concede.
So long as a community remained pastoral and nomadic, so surely did woman retain a physical development equal and perfect as that of her mate. Thus, we find that Atalanta was as fleet of foot as any of her male companions, and not until she allowed her cupidity to get the better of her judgment, while striving to secure the golden apples dropped by Hippomenes during the race, was she vanquished. That woman was once as skillful as man in the practice and art of venery, was symbolized by the fact that men did not deem it unworthy to worship a virgin huntress, and called upon Diana to lend them her knowledge and support in the chase. That war even claimed their services is evidenced by Herodotus and other ancient historians; and although the prowess of the doughty Amazons, who, in order that they might not be impeded in the use of the bow, mutilated their right breasts, may be in a great measure mythical, still such testimony goes to prove conclusively that woman, while perhaps not endowed with the same brute strength as man, can be his peer in most games, pastimes and recreations that call for dexterity and quickness of hand, foot and eye.
No one can gainsay the fact that the long-continued seclusion of our fair sisters from sports and exercises has undoubtedly much deteriorated the physical stamina of the female race, at least in civilized countries. They are not capable of undergoing the fatigue, exertion and exposure nature intended they should; they are the victims of many ailments that have become hereditary to their sex simply from inaction. They are not (I am talking now of the upper and leisure classes of civilized society more especially) in as thoroughly a healthy physical condition to sustain the burdens of maternity and its consequent strain upon the system as they ought to be, as it was intended by nature that they should be, and as they undoubtedly would be, if healthy exercise was more universally prevalent among the sex. If any reader doubts this statement he has only to analyze the statistics of any European nation that bear upon this subject to be convinced.
Happily, the baneful results of an indoor life of inaction have been realized before its effects have become ineradicable, and the growing superiority of the physical development of the Anglo-Saxon over her Latin sister is due chiefly to the revival of athletic outdoor exercise among the women of this family. English girls may surely claim the lead in the good work of athletic regeneration. They are closely followed by their fair sisters and rivals on this side of the Atlantic, and both are head and shoulders ahead of the daughters of France, Germany, and the other Continental nations. I will not waste words in contrasting the physical condition of the women of the West with the deplorable state of the sex in the East. It would be an insult to Christianity.
EN GARDE.
FIRST POSITION. SECOND POSITION.