The Graphic, wrestling in Devon and Cornwall: superiority of West Country play (1870)

WRESTLING. Those who see wrestlers on a London arena of sawdust, whether they represent France against England or Cumberland against Westmoreland, gain thereby a very imperfect idea of this famous athletic sport. It is a country game. It belongs aright to wild regions where the turf is virgin, and the wrestler, like Antaeus in the old myth, gains fresh strength and spirit by his contact with his mother earth. The French and English contests which recently attracted some attention, were simply nonsensical. Of the French performance it may fairly be said that it was neither “la guerre” nor “la magnifique”: the Frenchmen had not an elementary notion of wrestling, and would have been mere infants in the grip of a Devonshireman of the old school. For it is in Devon and Cornwall that the art has reached perfection, and, although much has been said about the cruelty of kicking, which forms a part of the West Country practice, it should be remembered that the wrestler uses every limb, every muscle indeed, and this is the cause for its superiority claimed for the sport over boxing, single-stick, fencing, and the like.

Anybody who would like to become an adept should go into some wild part of Devon and take lessons from the young farmers. The pursuit of the gallant science might thus be combined with the enjoyment of delicious scenery, not forgetting cider as fine as Rhine wine, and the inimitable cream of the county.

Mr. Blackmore, in his capital novel, “Clara Vaughan,” tells a true story of a famous Devonshire wrestler, to whom he gives the name of John Huxtable. The incident is true; and it shows to what manner of strength a man may obtain who gives full and strenuous play to all his muscles. It will, however, be a long time before you will see a man and horse thrown bodily over a high hurdle in the Agricultural Hall.

Wrestling, we have remarked, develops man in all his limbs: that is the superiority claimed for it. It is impossible to be a first-class wrestler without making vigorous use of every portion of the body. The rowing man has mighty arms and chest; the pedestrian, prodigious thews of thigh and calf; but the wrestler is everywhere of equal development. Hence it is certainly an art which our young athletes ought by no means to neglect.