page_title: Colonel Thomas Hoyer Monstery
section_title: Writings on Self-Defense
hierarchical_section_title: Colonel Thomas Hoyer Monstery / Writings on Self-Defense
caption_attribution_description: English: Image from Colonel Thomas Monstery's chapter on self-defense with a cane Français&#160;: Image extraite d'un chapitre de self-défense à l'aide d'une canne du Colonel Thomas Monstery.
context_page_description: Thomas Hoyer Monstery was a Danish-American fencing and boxing instructor, duelist and soldier-of-fortune who fought in a number of Central and South American conflicts during the mid-19th century.
context_section_description: In 1877 and 1878, while living in New York, Monstery published a number of articles on self-defense, treating of bare-knuckle boxing, kicking, grappling, and fencing with the cane and quarterstaff, and including defense against "rough and tumble" tactics and dirty tricks. Monstery wrote,
  Every gentleman should be able to protect himself from insult and violence, with or without weapons...I teach the following tricks, not with any idea that they are to be used in friendly encounters with the gloves, but solely for the protection of gentlemen who may, at any time, against their will, be forced into an encounter with a street ruffian.
  Monstery also offers a unique look into the Victorian-era fighting world, describing styles such as British "purring" (shin-kicking), Welsh jump-kicking, and American rough-and-tumble fighting. The armed section of Monstery's treatise begins with the cane, or hickory walking-stick, which he describes as "the proper companion of every gentleman"—good against knives, sword-canes, and even guns:
  Boxing will get a gentleman out of a great many scrapes into which he may fall, but in some parts of the Union he will come across men who habitually carry knives or pistols and in such a case a stout walking-stick, if he knows how to use it, may save his own life, and—what I consider more important—prevent the necessity of his taking the life of another...You cannot spare a man’s life with the pistol, and no generosity can be shown therewith. You must kill him or he kills you. With the cane it is different. Many are the pistols and knives that I have struck from the hands of men by a smart blow on the wrist with a cane, and many are the murderous brawls I have prevented in this way. As a queller of disturbances, I know of nothing better than a hickory or ash stick.
  Monstery's subsequent technical section on the use of the two-handed quarterstaff is the first such treatise to be published during the nineteenth century, and the only one to be published in America prior to the twentieth century. Monstery also published rules for contests of boxing and fencing, criticizing those in use at the time. After fading into obscurity, Monstery's writings on self-defense were eventually republished during the twenty-first century under the title Self-Defense for Gentlemen and Ladies.
  During the 1880s, Monstery also wrote or co-wrote a successful series of dime novel stories. In 2019, one of these semi-autobiographical novels, based on Monstery's experiences in Latin America, was republished with additional biographical information, under the title King of the Swordsmen.
caption: Monstery's cane self defense technique, 1878
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