The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1883-06-23 00:00:00

A MILITARY TOURNAMENT IN
LONDON.

For the fourth year in succession the Grand Mili-
tary Tournament in aid of the Cambridge Fund for
Old and Disabled Soldiers has opened at the Agri-
cultural Hall, London. On Monday afternoon the con-
tests and exercises attracted a large body of spectators,
and all the principal galleries, and indeed every point
whence a view of the contests could be obtained, were
occupied. The numbers were swelled by eight hundred
boys from the Royal Naval School at Greenwich, a
hundred and fifty children of Scottish soldiers, sailors,
and marines from the Royal Caledonian Asylum, who
marched in, headed by their band of diminutive
pipers—the only one of its kind in Great Britain—
fifty children from the Guards School and Home at
Westminster, and forty Chelsea veterans, for all of
whom seats had been provided by the Executive.
The first competition was a bout at single•stick, in
which the opponents displayed more vigorous dash
and reckless daring than skill in fence. In several
cases the difficulty was not to say whether there had
been a hit, but which it was who had hit Sat, and
only occasional doubts on this point prolcnged pro-
ceedings that would otherwise have been decided at
the first encounter.

The only other competition for dismounted men on
the programme was sword against bayonet, but this
had to be postponed, and the bugle sounded for
mounted men to engage in a sword combat. There
were twenty competitors, and with scarcely a single
exception they displayed very skilful horsemanship,
whi'e the chargers performed every movement de-
manded of them as if knowing their work quite as
well as the ri(iers, so readily did they yield to the
slightest pressure of bit or heel. Here, though the
sword play was often fast and furious, while horses
swerved, and the balance of riders was frequently
disturbed by stout blows showered on them in quick
succession, not one of the competitors came down.

At this point the Duke of Cambridge, who was ac-
companied by several officers of the Headquarters
Staff, entered the hall, and his appearance was greeted
with loud cheers.

The lance combat that followed was productive of
much excitement among the spEctators. The op-
ponents charged so vigorously that if the contemplated
thrust had not been dexterously parried, many a gal-
lant trooper must have bitten the dust, and many a
lance shaft been shivered. So swift was the onslaught
of one combatant, that he bore his adversary back on
the enclosure, -and nearly succeeded in hurling him
among the ranks of spectators.

Then a bugle sounded the gallop, and a score of
troopers with lances couched rode at pace round the
arena. These were the tent peggers, whose feats of
skill invariably win loud applause. To hit a mark
only a few inches in breadth while going at full tilt, to
draw it clean out of the ground, and to bear it away
on the lance point is not a feat easy of accomplish.
ment, yet more than half the competitors succeeded in
doing it at each attempt, and Sergeant Hamblin, of
the 7th Dragoon Guards, especially took the peg with
a finished dexterity that any Afghan warrior might
have envied.

In tiiting at the ring no competitor gained the full
number of ma; ks, but three of them came very near
it, carrying off both rings at the first attempt, and
only missing this the second time by a hair's breadth.
After a display of lemon cutting, in which Private
Goode, 15th Hussars, showed great skill, there was a
competition in which each horseman had to maks two
cuts right and left at Turks' heads, thrust through a
ring jump, a fence, and make similar cuts and thrusts
after clearing it. This two of the troopers performed
without missing a single mark, and many only failed
by the swerving of their horses. Drivers of the field
and horse artillery sh..wed how skilfully they could
pass at a trot, and gallop through the narrowest open-
ings where a gun might go.

Thirty-six troopers of the Life Guards, in brilliant
full dress, went through the picturesque "double
ride," and the performance finished with a "Balaclava
melee," in which six men on either side engage in a
hand-to-hand sword struggle that lasts until all the
distinguishing cockades but one have been cut away.