Morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven [Conn.]) 1848-1894, 1886-07-08

formed on horseback, and which consequent
ly have become indispensable to the soldier
the modern military tournament owes itt
very elastic comprehensiveness 1t is inte
resting to remark that most of the celebrated
riders of the high horse have been keen
swordsmen; such was notoriously the case,
to mention only names familiar to English
ears, with the Duke of Newcastle, Sir Viii
liam Hope, the first Angelo and the Earl OF
Pembroke, who were as celebrated for thei1
| skill in the fencing roem as for their proves
| in the saddle
Nowadays so much interest is bestowed in
England on the favorite sports of hunting
and steeple- chasing that there seems to be
| little left to spare for that more essentially
military kind of riding which in foreign
countries is held to be of paramount impor-
tance. Of late years, however, tournaments
| have become the fashion, and among them
the annual military display at Agricultural
Hall may fairly be reckened as an encyclo-
paedia of all those martial exercises which
have been devised at all times to satisfy the
love of the people for warlike pageants, to
give the ardent youth field for the display
of his bravery and adroitness in gorgeous ar
ray, and also to afford humber but keen ex-
perts in the use of arms occasion to gain
wefl-merited notoriety and rewards The
| immense popularity of the Islington enter
tainment has, we believe, little to do with
Its charitable purpose-a most deserving one
but is due to intrinsic excellence. This
brave display appeals at once to the martial
spirit of a nation truly said to be always at
war IN some part or other of its dominions,
and to its innate admiration for physical
power; to the competent critic of military
athletics, as well as to the mere spectator in
search OF picturesque animation. The OBJ
server possessed of mania for historical
comparisons finds in its programme repre-
entat1ons-adapted to modern requirements
NOT only of the jousts, tournaments and
barriers of medieval knights, but of all the
quintain exercises, the castills, triumphs and
entries of latter-day cavaliers, the assaults
at arms of the last century, and all the new
est feats of horsemanship we have learned
from our eastern subjects. By letting his
Imagination run still more freely he might
even discover that many of those 'fevents"
which at first sight seem essentially modern
in character are mere renovations of antique
exercises For instance lance, bayonet and
sword exercise on foot form a tolerable coun-
terpart OF the Pyrrhic dance. In other
words they are rythmical movements repre-
senting all the principal actions the weapons
in question are capable of for offence and de-
fence, performed with much personal grace;
the Importance attached to rhythm at once
CHASING this kind of show outside the pale of
fencing. He would see that chariot-driving
as military exercise, which it undoubtedly
was in its earliest days, is not quite a thing
of the dead past, for it has been revived as
tournament display under even more exciting
and difficult conditions in the team driving
of our horse artillery, and we hardly think
that the enthusiasm excited in the Roman
circus by the sklllful management of quad
rige could have been greater than that
evoked at Islington by our gunners.
The mounted single trials, lance vs.. lance
nTo Ir6T h-a %1,r
dants of the joust in the list agreeably to
modern ideas, and where skilled riding and
cunning fence take the place OF sturdiness
and weight and excelleney of armor.
The combined movements of the musical
ride' expound the art of the haute ecole in
its practical bearing, while the charges and
pursuing practice of our troopers may be
said fairly to recall the purposes of the tour
movement.
In the contests on foot-foil- fencing, sin
gle stick, bayonet and sabre-can be appre-
ciated the varied nature of the ''playing for
prizes at all manner Of weapons, rapier and
backsword, pique, halbert and hanger"
whereat in past centuries the numerous
porations of masters of defence solemnly
proved their science and bravery. The great
superiority of lemon cutting, heads and
posts, tent-pegging with sword and lance,
over the old-fashioned tilts at the quintain,
as display of accurate horsemanship, would
no doubt amaze the shade of the great Plu-
vinel himself, and convince him that the un-
toward aseendency of powder and lead has
not been fatal to English cavaleresque ac-
complishments. Nor are triumphs and cas-
tills, such as the siege of the Castle of Beau
ty which delighted Elizabeth and amused
the ambassadors, her guests or the storming
of infdel strongholds dear to Spanish tour
nament managers, without their modern rep
resentatives in the cleverly marshalled sham
fights which formed the most novel features
of this years display.