The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1890-03-21
WOMEN WHO FENCE.
They Nay Benefit from the Art---
Grace and Muscle Attainablc.

f
Sufficient evidence that woman may
become a mistress of fence with the
foils as she is always with the tongue
is given in a spirited article by Mar
garet Bisland, published in outing.
She tells us that it is in Paris, where
the practical use of small swords
among men has never been restricted,
that the art OF fencing has fiourished
apace since the days of lie Grand
Monarch Many women regularly
attend the sales d'armes, of which
there are a score, or practice in their
homes, always under the eye of some
skillful maitre. For this part of her
education the Frenchwoman has a
natural aptness; the tradition, agility
and wit of her race aid her in a rapid
mastery of detail and graceful finish
of execution. 1t was she, nc doubt,
who so successfully proved to Ameri-
can ONE that fencing is after all
the exercise best adapted to feminine
needs. Much of that French temporal
ment is common in our ladies, who,
after noting the fact that even their
German and Italian sisters entered
the lists to gain crowns of laurel, took
up their foils with such Characteristic
energy and enthusiasm. Among them
we may look for and indeed have
already found several fencers of no
common skill. The French woman
took up this practice more as a polite
accomplishment, than for any serious
reason, while on this side of the water
it is studied not only for pleasure, but
for higher physical development, to
which American women have of late
turned their attention..
Now, fencing develops the muscu-
lar system by the simple process of
learning its practice, while it does not
bring on physical exhaustion, often
the result of other exercises. Many
women have overtaxed their powers
at lawn tennis by becoming over
heated or straining weak muscles,
only to pay dearly in the future for
such imprudence. Or, perhaps-and
tits not uncommon after one season of
vigorous racquet swinging-big knotty
biceps are found to have become too
prominent in a white, rounded arm
and gloves of size fit for the left hand
to fit over the broadened palm
of the right. And this is the prime
advantage OF fencing-that every
muscle is brought into play, not in
the arms alone that WELD the foil, but
the wrists, lower limbs, waist and
back, and even ankles, must be
trained to fall from one position into
another without effort, yet with won
derful rapidity and grace.
The average sport or exercise is
mastered by plupging wildly into its
mysteries, hitting out blindly to right
and left, trusting with confidence to
change and practice to getting licked
into shape, and in most cases a guide
or master is rather a hindrance than a
help. But it is hardly so with fencing,
for this is altogether too intricate and
delicate a game to admit of even one
blunder which would unhinge all the
carefully planned theory by which it
Is taught. The pupils are requested
to exercise not only a deal of muscular
and dexterity, but an intelli-
gent Judgment that will keep the
mind on the alert, eager, yet pleas
excited and we'll under control.
When once the delicaeies of the foil
practice are successfully conquered,
the slender cleaning rapier might be
lntrusted wen in the hands Of a wo-
man, for what she may lack in positive
size of bone and mussle is made up in
exceeding dexterity. Yet, so far, they
content with the blunted foil.
Broadswords are somewhat too heavy
TO lift and swing, while feminine
nerves shrink from the clash of steel,
cut and slash, before which her more
strongly constituted brother never
Nervous prostration, the evil genius
is supposed sooner or later to
overtake the excited nervous society
girl in her mad career after pleasure,
may be vanquished at the blades
point. This is a common aiIment of
American women, who are apt to
carry out any work which their hands
ind to do with such vigor that ex-
laustion is often the result.
l. 49, IA-.l.-- - L