Fleischer, From Milo To Londos (1936)
pp. 26
“By Tre, Pol & Pen, ye may know Cornishmen,” says the old ballad and also by his wrestling jacket is the Cornish wrestler known.
And wherever “Cousin Jack” has set foot, there he has taken with him his love of a wrestle. From time beyond all memory, even tradition, the Cornishman has the reputation of being the most expert in all Europe. So agrees M. Jusserand in his classic work “Sports and Pastimes of the Middle Ages.”
The best exponent of the Arm Flying Mare is the Cornishman.
This chip is of long lineage, since mural paintings, prove that it was known to ancient Egyptian wrestlers. Many notable contests were held in the Cornish style of wrestling.
Carew in his “Survey” (1602) states that “you shall hardly find an assembly of boys where a muster of this exercise may not be given.” The Cornish Hug has become a proverbial expression.
Fuller (1608) mentions it in his “Worthies of England,” “a cunning close.”
The earliest English author of a wrestling book was Sir Thomas Parkyns, of Bunny, Nottinghamshire. Richard Trevithick of Cornwall, inventor of the high pressure engine and many mechanical contrivances and a great genius, was a champion wrestler whose great deeds as an all around athlete are cherished by Cornishmen.
pp. 165
About this time an American wrestler named Carkeek made his appearance in London. I had known this man in France as an average grappler. He was about forty years of age, and claimed, among other things, to have defeated Beaucairois, Gambier, and Pytlasinski.
I sent more than one challenge to his manager, and also to Carkeek himself, but they were invariably refused. I was on the point of leaving England when it came to my knowledge that Carkeek, believing me to have already gone, had challenged any professional wrestler then in London to wrestle with him either in the Graeco-Roman, “Catch-as-catch-can,” or Cornish styles, and would be sure to make a big advertisement out of my departure. I therefore purchased a box close to the stage (of the Alhambra), and as soon as Carkeek had finished his challenge, I sprang, accompanied by Mr.
Vansittart, the famous athlete, known as “The Man with the Grip of Iron,” on to the stage in full wrestling costume, while my com-panion, holding a stake of £25 in his hand, challenged Carkeek to wrestle with me, and undertook to hand over the sum he held if I failed to throw Carkeek at least ten times within an hour.
A tremendous uproar ensued. Though the audience took our part, we were compelled to leave the stage by the police. On the following day I lodged £25 with the editor of the Sportsman on the conditions already announced from the stage. All the newspapers gave favorable notices of my début, and on March 10 I received an engagement at the Tivoli Theatre, London. For some time my health suffered from a climate to which I was unaccustomed, but I nevertheless accepted further engagements, which were freely offered me.
pp. 170
By-the-way, on one occasion while in Australia, I was challenged to wrestle in the Cornish style of wrestling, in which a fall is secured only when a wrestler is thrown on any three points, viz., both shoulders and one hip, or both hips and a shoulder touch the ground.
All bouts are contested from a standing position, and a hold is secured on the jacket which each contestant has to wear.
My challenger, Delhi Nielsen, who was an experienced Cornish wrestler, may perhaps have imagined that at this style (to which I was quite unaccustomed) he might very probably enjoy a comparatively even chance with me. Having defeated over 400 opponents and possessing an untarnished record, he was, in fact, very confident.
He consequently refused to wrestle with me, save under these conditions, and I was compelled to agree to his terms, trusting that my acquaintance with the Russian style of wrestling, with waist-belts (between which and the Cornish style there is a very faint resem-blance, although tripping is prohibited under the Russian rules), might stand me in good stead.
Be that is it may, I was able to rise to the occasion and to throw him very easily.
Having completed my Australian engagements, during the course of which I defeated Grotz, who was called the Champion of South Africa, and several other prominent wrestlers and physical culturists, I paid a brief visit to New Zealand, and then sailed for America, where I was booked for several engagements, the most important of all being my return match with Tom Jenkins, the American cham-pion, whom I had defeated under Graeco-Roman rules at the Albert Hall on July 2, 1904.
Fleischer, Nat (1936). From Milos to Londos: The story of wrestling through the ages….