Armstrong, Badminton Library: Wrestling (1890)

FENCING BY WALTER H. POLLOCK, F. C. GROVE, AND CAMILLE PREVOST, MAITRE D’ARMES

WITH A COMPLETE BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE ART BY EGERTON CASTLE, M.A., F.S.A.

BOXING BY E. B. MICHELL

WRESTLING BY WALTER ARMSTRONG

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS FROM INSTANTANEOUS PHOTOGRAPHS

Second Edition

LONDON LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 1890

All rights reserved

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….was unable to brook the taunts of rivals in the neighbouring county. The antagonism between Devonshire and Cornwall is perhaps stronger than between any two adjoining divisions of England; and as each enjoyed a special reputation for proficiency in wrestling a grand match had long been in contemplation. There was, however, much difficulty in arranging its details, by reason of the very different rules allowed on each side of the border. The Devonians had at some time or other grafted on to the antique practice of competing in thick stockings a habit of wearing shoes; and by the abuse of this latitude of rules (for it cannot be otherwise regarded than as an abuse) the shoes had been allowed to develop into hideous weapons armed with a thick sharp-edged sole. The Cornish men, who had never permitted such eccentricities, although they allowed the use of the foot in ‘striking,’ stood out for a long time for the exclusion of thick soles and the use only of soft slippers. Eventually, in order that the match might not fall through, the Cornish champion yielded the point, and the meeting took place under rules prescribed by the other party. A graphic though rather inartistic account of the meeting was printed at the time. It describes both men as fine specimens of their class, and well prepared for the struggle. The Cornish man had, however, not so far mastered the kicking tactics as to be able to escape severe punishment. His pluck in enduring the frightful blows aimed at his shins excited the admiration of all the impartial critics; but no one can read without some disgust the description of the sufferings which he had to endure before he could get to close quarters and engage in the art of wrestling, properly so called. When he succeeded in this his superiority seems to have been apparent, and the damage done to his understandings did not so incapacitate him as to prevent him from discomfiting his adversary.

It will be gathered from what has been said that the West-

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country style is to a large extent made up of ‘out-fighting.’ The men stand, like Ulysses and Ajax, wide apart, forming with their two bodies a sort of right angle ‘like the beams of a well-shaped roof.’ But while in this position they not only struggle to overbalance their opponent and twist or swing him over, but freely use their legs in the attack. The Cornish man strikes with his heel or instep, using it somewhat as the French athletes in the savate, endeavouring to cut away the other man’s legs from under him and thus render him an easier victim; while the Devonian not only does this, but aims vicious blows with his toes at the shinbone of the enemy, in the hope of inducing him through pain or faintness to yield the day. Another notable peculiarity of the West-country style is that the hold is altogether artificial. Each man wears a short strong jacket made of untearable material, and of this his adversary gets a hold as best he can, endeavouring usually to seize with one hand the back of the jacket behind the shoulder and with the other the sleeve or arm of it. School-boys in these two counties used to find the ordinary cloth school jacket well fitted for purposes of wrestling; the tailors of Exeter and Plymouth had little chance of using ‘shoddy’ for their juvenile customers without being speedily discovered. The Cumberland and Westmoreland style is so fully treated later on that details need not be given here.

‘Loose wrestling,’ sometimes called the ‘Catch as catch can’ style, requires no elaborate placing of the men in position, and no special formality in catching hold. Kicking and even striking with the foot, though no shoes are worn, are usually prohibited; and it is not allowed to catch hold of the hair or the clothes, or to take a grip of the skin or flesh, or to twist the arms or fingers. In many places a man is not considered down until both shoulders are forced on to the ground; but a more simple rule has been introduced in other clubs and places, of

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CHAPTER IV.

STYLES AND SYSTEMS.

HALF a century ago a fierce rivalry existed between the two counties of Devon and Cornwall, and ever since that period meetings have frequently occurred between picked men, notably about the time when Abraham Cann was the pride of the Devonshire folks, and kicking with heavy boots was the favourite mode of grassing an opponent. Fortunately, the practice of the rival counties has since been assimilated, and we have no involved challenges now like that from Cann, of whom the Cornishman sang that he

Was not the man,
To wrestle with Polkinhorne.

There is none of the ‘toe’ business now which at one period made the Cornwall and Devon wrestling meetings such brutal exhibitions. During Abraham Cann’s time, however, the ‘boot’ was the chief weapon of warfare, and when he met the Cornish champion Polkinhorne there is said to have been a big wrangle about the ‘shoeing’ of the champions, Polkinhorne in the end waiving the point and allowing his opponent full liberty. Another authority states that it was Cann who offered advantageous terms to his adversary in the following words: ‘Polkinhorne, I will take off my stockings and play bare-legged with you, and you may have two of the hardest and heaviest shoes that can be made of leather in the county of Cornwall,

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and you shall be allowed to stuff yourself as high as the armpits to any extent not exceeding the size of a Cornish peck of wool, and I will further engage not to kick you if you don’t kick me.’ We are also told that in the actual contest, two falls out of three, Polkinhorne (who weighed 3 st. 4 lbs. more than his opponent) cased his shins with leather, and relied on the hug as opposed to the kick, while the Devonshire man was furnished with kicking shoes of a most appalling pattern. The match took place at Morris Town near Plymouth in 1826 in the presence of a large gathering—it is said that close on 10,000 people paid for admission to the ring, and quite that number looked on from the hills outside—and resulted in a draw owing to the complicated nature of the West-country definition of a fall. Polkinhorne’s shins had been fearfully mangled, while the hide of Cann was red and raw from the dreadful hug of the Cornishman. The two champions did not meet again in the ring, though Cann issued a challenge. But apart from all this it is the purest imaginable nonsense to consider Cann—who was only a light-weight and double jointed—a Champion. He was undoubtedly floated into notoriety by certain absurd rules framed in such a way that one man might show himself a superior wrestler all through a contest, and yet be prevented from winning, while his opponent, although repeatedly thrown until almost shaken to a jelly, by artfully landing on his stomach when unable to keep his foothold on the ground, might eventually save the money of his supporters and make a draw of a contest in which he had been clearly overmatched. No amount of argument can bolster up a set of regulations under which a man may be thrown no end of times by a better wrestler than himself, and yet, because he does not fall on the requisite number of ‘points,’ may resume the struggle, weary the spectators, and finally, by means of a quibble, leave the result undecided, and all because he has the gift of falling

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upon his paunch instead of on his back. It would be well if the promoters of wrestling throughout the kingdom would compare the English systems in a fair and impartial spirit, in order that one standard method might be decided upon in which the experts from all wrestling districts could meet and compete on equal terms. This would abolish all that cavilling nonsense as to which system is the best, who are the best men in each, and who is the champion of the lot, and of England. Tom Sayers’s title of Champion of England stood out in noble contrast to the miserable striving after such distinctions as champion of Devon, Cornwall, Lancashire, or Cumberland and Westmoreland.

On beginning operations in the ring the Cornwall and Devon men—who, by the way, wear strong linen jackets—assume a stooping position and are supposed to catch hold above the waist, but they feint and dodge about in a wearisome manner sometimes for hours before any climax is arrived at. Kicking is now forbidden and the men compete in their stocking feet. In order to be fairly thrown two shoulders and one hip must be on the ground or two hips and one shoulder, it matters not which, and a man must be thrown flat on his back before any other portion of his body touches the earth ere a decision can be given against him. Hauling and mauling on the ground, as in Lancashire and French wrestling, are useless expedients; and a competitor who pitches on his nether extremity is allowed to rear himself up on his legs, and renew the struggle as if he had never been down at all. Directly a competitor feels himself in danger of being thrown he gets to grass on the flat of his paunch if possible, in order that he shall not be thrown on his back.

Judging this style of wrestling is by no means easy, as a slippery player may be thrown flatly enough for all practical purposes, yet by an adroit movement may raise either a hip

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or shoulder and so create the impression that he has not really been put down, and a clever player when hardly bringing his man down on all the required points might, and frequently does, give him a slight jerk. This move is usually practised when a man is over or under thrown; of course if the fall is under, i.e. not thrown enough, the jerk would be forward, and if overthrown then the jerk would be backward. An expert can easily discern this, but outsiders often clamour loudly over these falls, and a weak judge is liable to be influenced. With regard to collaring, a man must not take the two collars of his opponent’s jacket in one hand, nor can he do so at any time during the play. Some men have a trick of slipping their hand under the jacket up behind their opponent’s back, bringing the hand over his shoulder and then grasping hold of the opposite jacket collar, the tightened jacket enabling the wrestler to hold on like grim death. In Devonshire this is disallowed, but in Cornwall it is up to the present sometimes permitted. No competitor is allowed to take hold of his opponent’s drawers, belt, or handkerchief, but he may grasp the bottom corners of his jacket. Three minutes are allowed between each bout, and usually fifteen minutes between each ‘back,’ or fair fall.

The great amount of unsatisfactory judging, and the haggling and ‘fratching’ inseparable from West-country wrestling meetings in London, have been the means of wiping out nearly all traces of Cornwall and Devon wrestlers, as a body, from the metropolis, a circumstance much to be regretted, as a little more unity among the patrons of the sport, a revision of their rules, especially relative to their definition of a fall, and a complete revolution of the wrestling ‘uniform’ of the competitors, would have insured the popularity of the exercise. As an illustration of the absurdity of the old fossilised regulations in question, one case will suffice. At a wrestling gathering in

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London some years ago, John Graham, the celebrated Cumberland wrestler, threw an opponent no fewer than sixteen times, but on each occasion the verdict was ‘no fall.’ Now, under Northern laws, or any other laws which merely state that one man shall be fairly and squarely thrown, Graham’s opponent would have been defeated at the very first trial, whereas the men ultimately ‘tossed up’ and the Cumbrian lost, his opponent securing the verdict. Yet, in spite of all these fatal objections to their rules, Cornish and Devonshire wrestlers maintain that their system is the best of all known methods throughout the world. Surely the majority of athletes, and especially those interested in this ancient sport, will agree that a moment of resolute and scientific exertion on the ‘first down to lose’ principle is worth a week’s barn-door fowl sparring in canvas jackets, and dog-fighting on the ground, and must create more enthusiasm and excitement than any amount of such wearisome and unscientific toil.

In the limited space at command it will be impossible to enter into the details of attack and defence peculiar to this fashion of wrestling. At the same time it may be well to correct an erroneous impression that exists in many minds to the effect that the Devon and Cornwall styles of wrestling are two different systems; indeed, the difference between the two is really now so slight that the better and more comprehensive term to apply to both would be, ‘West-country wrestling.’ True, there is a decided variation in the mode of play practised by wrestlers hailing from the respective counties, but this scarcely affects the practical result. The Devon style was formerly principally characterised by kicking and tripping, while the Cornishmen were, and are still, noted for hugging and heaving. These distinguishing features, however, are not now confined to the two counties in any separate degree, as the Devon players are fairly well up in the Cornish peculiarities.

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Again, Cornishmen have not been at all averse to a bout at kicking, while at the same time their tripping accomplishments have always been quite equal to anything their rivals have displayed in that line. Probably the chief difference in the two styles—now that kicking has, except on rare occasions, been discontinued in Devonshire—is to be traced to the vexed question of, What constitutes a ‘fair back fall’? The ‘fair back fall’ argument has always been the bone of contention between the two counties, and between both wrestlers and judges, and is still one of the most serious drawbacks this ancient pastime has to contend against. Undoubtedly, the numerous unsatisfactory decisions given from time to time in consequence of the multitude of loopholes always gaping wide open for a wrangle in West-country wrestling conditions have been the principal cause of the decline and fall of the sport in the metropolis. It is well known, too, that in local matches decided in Cornwall the strictness which is the rule in Devonshire is not observed. In the first-named county, a wrestler might be pitched on his side or shoulder and, if kept moving, be rolled over on his back, and thus have a fall decided against him; whereas in Devonshire matches, a man to be thrown a fair back fall must be pitched flatly on his back, as previously stated. In a ‘three-point’ match two shoulders and one hip or two hips and one shoulder must touch the ground at one time. In ‘four-point’ matches both shoulders and hips must reach the ground simultaneously, and this before hand, arm, knee, or any portion of either thrown or thrower reaches the earth.

Not much fault can be found with the Cornwall and Devon style of going to work, but the frantic and hair-splitting efforts of some of the promoters of wrestling in both counties to draw a line of demarcation betwixt the two systems, which for all practical purposes are one, are simply incomprehensible;

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and why the three and four points definition of a fall cannot be abolished in favour of ‘first down to lose,’ has for years puzzled all wellwishers and admirers of the sport who are unconnected with the counties. Judging this style of wrestling as it now exists is one of the most difficult and unsatisfactory tasks anyone can possibly face, as a tricky performer after being thrown has only to move a hip or shoulder in an expert manner in order to secure another trial; and frequently an inferior wrestler can carry on this game till darkness sets in, or until the time for adjournment arrives, in order to make a draw of a contest in which he stood no earthly chance had the conditions been reasonable. A firm referee can often prevent this kind of manœuvre, but a timid one is more frequently influenced and alarmed by outside clamour, and as a rule refuses to interfere just at the point when decisive measures are most imperative.

Perhaps a retrospective glance at some of the heroes of the past may be interesting to many readers. Undoubtedly the greatest West-country contest of the century was that which took place between Cann and Polkinhorne (already referred to). Abraham Cann is next heard of at the Golden Eagle, a tavern in the Mile End Road, where he met and defeated Gaffney, a gigantic Irishman, in the best of five back falls, Cann staking 60l. to his opponent’s 50l. Subsequently, at the same place, in an open competition, Cann took first prize, and his brother James gained second honours. Among those who competed were Chappell, Copp Thorne, Finney, Parish, Jordan (the Devonshire giant), Middleton, Clargoe, Pyle, and Saunders.

Again, at Leeds, in 1828, there was a large gathering of wrestlers, including Abraham Cann, James Stone (‘the little elephant’), Wrexford, Bolt, and Jordan. Cann and ‘the little elephant’ took first and second honours respectively. In June 1828 one Oliver, a Cornishman, defeated James Cann for a

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purse of 20l. at the Eagle Tavern, City Road; and in the same month George Saunders, a Cornishman, met the huge Irishman Gaffney at the Wellington Grounds, Chelsea, the best of five back falls (without boots), when the latter won. Shortly afterwards the parties met at Tom Cribb’s, but failed to ratify a further match. Another wrestling meeting was held at the Wellington Grounds in June of the same year. The company numbered upwards of 1,000, one hundred of whom were noblemen and gentlemen of high position, including Earls Grey and Talbot; Lords Falmouth, Clanwilliam, Elliott, and Wallscourt; Hon. Mr. Fortescue; Sir John Shelley, Bart.; Sir Charles Lemon, Bart.; Sir J. Bamfyld, &c. &c. Twenty-eight wrestlers entered the ring—thirteen Devon men, the same number from Cornwall, one Cumberland man, and one Irishman. The last named was placed with the Cornishmen; the Cumbrian (Henry Mossop, who wrestled at the Cumberland and Westmoreland Sports in 1830-32, held at the Eyre Arms, St. John’s Wood) being told off on the side of the Devonians. The double play resulted as follows:—Standing, Devon: J. Cann, Thorne, Batstone, Steers, Kerslake, Pyle, Copp, Avery, Perry, and Mossop. Standing, Cornwall: Oliver, Trewick, Johnson, and Cocks. The men were then matched in the following order for triple play:—Oliver threw James Cann, Thorne threw Johnson, Cocks threw Batstone, Trewick threw Kerslake, Steers threw Perry, Pyle threw Avery, and Copp threw Mossop. For the final seven men were left in, viz. Devon—Steers, Copp, Pyle, and Thorne; Cornwall—Oliver, Cocks, and Trewick. Pyle odd man. Oliver threw Thorne easily, Trewick threw Copp, and Steer threw Cocks; Trewick threw Pyle, and Oliver threw Steers. Trewick then resigned in favour of Oliver, who took the first prize, 12l.

Poor Abraham Cann in his latter days fell into difficulties; but after the fight between Sayers and Heenan in 1860 a suf-