The hand can assume three different positions when thrusting or parrying.
(1.) In quarte, where the palm is uppermost.
(2.) In tierce, where the knuckles are uppermost.
(3.) And in six, where the thumb is uppermost and the fingers are on the left; this last position is also called middling.
And to this article I refer all my young lady readers and fencers, but recommend you, as he himself would, to go to a master first and study his instructions as an aid to your maitre’s practical teaching.
There are a number of excellent teachers of fencing in New York. Among the best will be found Captain Nicholas, of the New York Fencers’ Club; Mons. Regis Senac, of the New York Athletic Club; Mons. Tronchet, of the Manhattan A. C., and Mons. Louis Rondell, of the Knickerbocker Fencing Club. The last two named gentlemen are graduates of the celebrated French Military Academy, at Joinville-les-Ponts, France, the highest authority on this subject in the world.
A last point I will make ere I close. Learn fencing, if for no other reason, at least as an additional means of protection and self-defense in case of a sudden emergency.
Although you, my fair sisters, may not be called upon to defend yourselves against the murderous attacks of drunken or lawless ruffians, yet instances are on record where women have been compelled literally to fight for the lives of themselves and their children. With the knowledge and practical experience gained in the salle d’armes, or the friendly bouts with foil and single-stick that helped to while away a winter afternoon, they have been able to hold their own, nay, even to come off victorious in a contest in which the stakes were life against life. I remember an instance of such a nature which, when told round the jovial mess-table, with clinking glasses and flashing lights and bursts of jocund laughter, hushed every tongue and caused the breath to come with panting gasps from breasts suffocating with feelings of hatred and vengeance.
A gay young subaltern returning to India after his first leave of absence, brought with him a tall, fair flower of English girlhood, gathered from a quiet vicarage away in Devonshire. Passing her life in the free enjoyment of the glorious English air, taking long rambles o’er fen and field and wold with her father, or joining in the more hardy sports by flood and field when her brothers were home for the holidays, she had built up a constitution that defied the weather and had acquired a freedom of action, a superb grace of deportment that would have been the envy of the sylvan Diana. She was a perfect horsewoman, a capital shot with gun and pistol, and could give points to most of her brothers at pool or billiards. Mrs. K—— had been well drilled in fencing and single-stick practice, and was passionately fond of the pastime; often after the early morning parade the young husband would invite some one or other of his brother officers to their cool bungalow veranda, where many a lusty bout was fought by the ardent young swordswoman, while the happy husband laughed merrily at the discomfiture of his warrior brothers.
But this pleasant scene was soon to change. Rumors of the deadly mutiny raging in Bengal were brought to the out-of-the-way cantonment. The swarthy Punjaubees, who a month or two before had paraded so quietly and calmly, and were so alert to obey orders, came now to drill or stables with dogged step and sullen brow.