room was perforce comparatively slow, cor

land, the Bill never became Act, and gentlemen, in consequence, continued to discuss their knotty points sur le pré.

To resume since it began to be practised as a regulated art one may say broadly that fencing has passed through four main phases. The first might aptly be termed THE FRANKLY BRUTAL. It belongs to the early Tudor days of sword and buckler encounters, whereof, if the best theoretical treatises appeared in Italy, the sturdiest practical exponents were most probably found in these islands.

Then came what may be called the THE FIERCELY PICTURESQUE, coeval with the eager adoption by the ruffling community of the cavaliero mannerism, with all its fascinating bombast; with its antics and loud resounding Italo-Spanish jargon. There, may be discerned the dawn of fencing proper, which will fully arise when, in Caroline times, the outrageous length of the tucke will at last be sufficiently reduced no longer to require the dagger as a helpmate.

With the light, elegant and deadly smallsword we enter a new atmosphere, so to speak, on fencing ground. Suppleness of wrist and precision of fingering replace the ramping and traversing the heavy forcing play of the Elizabethan. The change is parallel with that in manners and in speech. It is now of vast importance when you deliver your botte in high tierce, your flanconnade, or your glissade in sagoon, or what not, to do so "with an air". "This to your heart!" by all means, but as you live, with a smiling good grace! All this is of course very superficial. But to my mind that was the great age of fencing, since fencing must ever be a conventional game. It is the phase of powder and patch and talons rouges, the phase that I would call "THE GALLANTLY DECOROUS." If the "FIERCELY PICTURESQUE" was represented by Vincenzo Saviolo, this one was typified, albeit, perhaps, at a time when it was already somewhat on the wane, by the admirable Angelo Tremamondo Malevolti-in one word, by our Angelo.

In the early days of the "gallantly decorous" age men still fenced in play as they fought in earnest. But presently there appeared on the scene an implement destined to revolutionise the art and hopelessly to divide the practice of the school from that of the field. I advert to the fencing mask. Before this invention, small-sword play in the master's

excited, argumentative phrases of modern assaults were unknown; and so was the almost inevitably consequent scrimmage. But under the protection of the fencing mask a new school of foil-play evolved itself, one in which swiftness and inveteracy of attack and parry, ef riposte, remise, counter riposte, and reprise, assumed an all important character. And with this new style began to assert itself that recklessness of "chance hits," which, in our days, so markedly differentiates foilpractice from actual duelling.

This brings us to the other consideration of our subject: Fencing as a sport.

If anything were required to demonstrate that fencing has nowadays passed into the state of what may be called fine art in athleticism, it would be found in the separate existence of the method which French masters particularise as le jeu du terrain, as duelling play in fact, a play which differs as completely from academic foil-fencing as cross-country riding in an unknown district from the haut école in the manège. By fencing, nowadays, we have come to mean not simply fighting for hits with the foil, but that strictly regulated play which, being quite conventional, does not take accidental hits into consideration at all. This game requires for its perfect display a combination of artificial circumstances, such as even floors and featherweight weapons. Now, for the more utilitarian purposes of duelling, the major part of the fencer's special achievement and brilliancy has to be uncompromisingly sacrificed in the presence of the brutal fact that thrusts in the face or below the waist do count, insomuch as they may kill; that accidental hits in the arm or the leg cannot be disregarded, for they may, and do generally, put a premature stop to the bout. The "rub on the green must be accepted, perforce, and often plays as important a part in the issue of the game as the player's skill. The fact, however, that in earnest encounters, all conventionalities which determine the value of a hit vanish, does not in any way justify the notion, prevalent among many, that a successful hit justifies any method of planting the same; and that the mere discarding of all convention in practical sword play is sufficient to convert a bad fencer into a dangerous duellist. In both plays in the highly polished, complicated and brilliant fence of the first class fencer," as well as in the simpler and more

cautious operations of the practised duellistthe one golden rule remains, namely, that one, so quaintly expressed by M. Jourdain's maître d'armes, in Molière's comedy: Tout le secret des armes ne consiste qu'en deux choses, à donner et à ne point recevoir."

Now the point most usually lost sight of by sanguine and self-reliant scorners of conventionalities is that, although with the sword it may be comparatively easy at any time "to give," it is not so easy to "give without receiving." The mutual simultaneous hitsthe coup-double-is, in fact, the dread pitfall of sword-play. And therefore, in courteous play, a hit has no real value, not only when it is actually cancelled by a counter, but when it is delivered in such a way as to admit of a counter. In short, it is the experience of ages and the careful consideration of probabilities, which have given birth to the various make-believes and restrictions that go to make sound foil-play. These restrictions are destined to act in the same direction as the warning presence of a sharp point instead of a button; and thus, as far as possible, to prevent those mutual hits-the contretemps of the old masters-which mar the greater number of assaults.

The proper observance of those conventions, other things being equal, distinguishes the good from the indifferent swordsman--the man who uses his head from him who rushes blindly where angels fear to tread.

In modern sword-play is seen the usual tendency of arts which have reached their climax of complication to return to their pristine. simplicity. With reference to actual duelling, it is a recognised thing that it would be the height of folly to attempt, sword in hand, the complex attacks, the full-length lunges, the neat but dangerously weak parries of the foil; so much so that many have been led to assert that, for its ultimate practical purposes (whichlogically is that of duelling) the refined art of the foil, requiring for its perfection so many years of assiduous and methodical work. is next to useless. It is alleged, as a proof, that the most successful duellists have, with but few exceptions, happened to be indifferent performers on the fencing floor. Some even maintain that a few weeks' special work in that restricted-very restricted-play, which alone can be considered safe on the field of honour, will produce as good a practical swordsman as any who have walked the schools for years.

Nothing can be further from the truth, were

it but on the ground that the greater includes the less; that the foil-fencer of standing, who can perform with ease and accuracy all the intricate movements of the assault, who has trained his hand and eye to the lightning speed of the well-handled foil, must logically prove more than a match for the more purely practical, but less trained, devotees of the epée de combat. The only difference for him in the two plays is that the latter is incomparably slower in action, simpler; that it demands, above all things, patience and caution; and especially that, instead of protecting his breast only, he must beware of the wily attack, or the chance hit, at every part of his body, whereas with the foil he need only think of his breast.

The modern teacher of the purely practical sword-play, curiously enough, returns to the older notions of marches and retreats, of heavy crossings and parries with powerfull positions. He attaches special value to time thrusts, darted at the nearest part of his adversary's body, even at the head-a stroke which reminds one of Le Flamand's Botte de Nevers or at the knee-which inevitably recalls that falso manco which gave the victory to Jarnac. Like the masters of ancient times, also, whose ideas always bore on the safest method of despatching an enemy without reference to æsthetics, the modern expounder of strict duelling play devotes uncurtailed consideration to the most approved ways of combatting different idiosyncrasies. This subject, by the way, was dealt with at full length, and very quaintly, in Sir William Hope's treatises on practical swordsmanship. By different idiosyncrasies, are meant, among others, the wiry and the phlegmatic, the reckless and the restrictive, the artistic and the ignorant.

In the most up-to-date phase of swordsmanship as applied to the vindication of personal honour there is a distant but quite perceptible similarity of purpose to that first, which I have called the Frankly Brutal. In contradistinction to its more immediate predecessors I would characterise it as " STRICTLY BUSINESS." In the eyes of some, but specially of the romantically disposed in such matters, it might in a way be looked upon as the reductio ad absurdum of the once gallant game. And yet it would be absurd to cavil at it. And what is more, it is

the obvious duty of the fencer, however truly devoted to the delights of academic foil play, to make himself acquainted with all its possibilities. For there would be something intensely ridiculous in the position of a man

who was held to be a great adept with the foil, and who yet allowed himself, when it came to the point, to be disabled by a mean thrust at the hand or the knee. Whatever may be the academic value of a hit with a pliant and well-buttoned foil, obviously with a sharp sword point every hit is good, whether merely lucky or superiorly devised, if it proves disabling. Your complete swordsman must be one who can place his hits with a gallant good grace, but one also who will not allow a clumsy opponent to prevail himself on any hap-hazard thrust.

Gallant bearing, disdainful valour, all that is very well in its way, "but the thing, Sir, is to hit your man without being hit yourself." That is the wisdom of ages. And further, especially in these days, the thing is not so much to kill your man-who cares about that now we are not savages ?-as to get through your duel satisfactorily to yourself, to your seconds, and the authorities. Draw blood and honour is satisfied.

Now all this demands much system and caution, and, as I have said, much patience. Indeed, we often see in the ultra modern epée play a good deal of what our Elizabethans would have called " very peaceable wars,' ending with much display of strategy and reticence in a stealthy stab on the hand or at the advanced leg. But, after all, a transfixed wrist or knee will place your man hors de combat as surely as the most dashing "This to your heart!"

In England at the present day, however, it is with fencing as a sport that we are mostly concerned. And an excellent sport it may be made, if cultivated in the right spirit; if the conventions of the game are scrupulously respected; and, above all, if consideration of form is placed over and above every other. It can never be to much insisted upon that in foil practice, where the factor of personal valour or of nerve plays no part, the actual hit is quite second in importance to the method of its delivery, to the neatness of execution; to form, in short. Unless such a conception of fencing, as a sport, obtains, all is lost. The game inevitably palls in a very short while, its futility becomes obtrusive; and inane it undoubtedly becomes, not only as a game, but as a practice in the art of fight generally. Rough, unregulated foil-play can never he more than an unseemly struggle with feeble looking weapons; whereas, on the other hand, good fencing should be the perfect instance of the cardinal fighting qualities - complete self

control in the midst of intense keenness and expectancy, swift decision following cool foresight, minimum of motion and effort resulting in maximum speed.

To many it must often seem a matter of wonder that among Englishmen, who take the lead in all matters of sport and exercise, there now should be found so few swordsmen of note. The reason, however, is not far to seek. It is not, as it is so often repeated, that Englishmen must take their exercise in the open air.. Boxing and gymnastics are not practised in the open air, and at such games we more than hold our own. The plain reason is that we have no school. We have plenty of fencing schools, but we have no English school.

There is nothing peculiar to the Frenchman, or any other Continental, to predispose him to sound swordsmanship. Now we have seen that before the 17th century the Frenchman had to learn his sword-play from Germans or Italians or Spaniards; that, in the 18th the French, on the other hand, sent masters all over the world. This was the result of the simple fact that in Italy, in Spain, and in Germany there had existed central schools of swordsmen where a high standard of excellence was maintained by keen competition and severe supervision from recognised masters. In the same manner, as long as our own Corporation of Masters of Defence existed, England could boast as great a national superiority over France in sword-play as she does now in pugilistic or other athletic pursuits. These central schools disappeared, whilst, on the other hand, the French Académie d'Armes was fostered. endures still under a revived form. Hence the lasting real superiority of the French fencing master.

It

During the last twenty years normal schools of fence for the training of masters have been established in Italy, with the result that Italian fence rooms can boast, at this morient, a number of men of the sword who run the best French professionals very close.

We, unfortunately, have no recognised academy, no place where a man must give proof of his ability before he can be allowed to teach others. As a result, with very few exceptions, fencing is badly taught. The admirable capacity of foil-play for the training of eye and muscle is misunderstood. Fencing is voted uninteresting, and in consequence, is much neglected. More is the pity; for although the original purpose of systematic sword-playwith us at least-is a thing of the past, fencing

as a refined and concentrated form of athletic exercise is admirably suited to a numerous class of men to whom other physical pastimes may be unavailable.

After the reading of the paper, Mr. Castle gave a demonstration of various styles of swordsmanship as exhibited in fencing and duelling. Mr. Castle was assisted by Monsieur Fontaine, Professor at the London Fencing Club, and by Mr. W. H. C. Staveley. Specimens of historical swords were shown by Mr. Castle and by the Chairman. Drawings by Mr. Percy Macquoid were also kindly lent by Colonel the Hon. William Le Poer Trench.

DISCUSSION.

The CHAIRMAN was sure that the audience had all followed Mr. Egerton Castle with the utmost interest. He felt honoured that Mr. Castle had been able to make use of some drawings of his that he made some years ago for the Graphic. Had he known that they were one day to be put to the severe test of being enlarged to the size they were on the screen he might have been inspired to draw them better. It was difficult for the present generation to realise how important a part a thorough knowledge of swordsmanship formerly played in a man's education. Mr. Castle had very clearly and ably described all the different methods of fence, which altered as the necessities of the period prompted. Although the fencing of to-day with the épée had been probably brought to a finer and more scientific point than that of any other period, there was very little doubt that the duellist of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries would prove a very awkward gentleman to settle. Fighting in those days was one of the recognised amusements of a gentleman, and although it was a form of humour that was no longer fashionable, the interest in the skill and art that it called forth was sometimes apt to make one forget how very serious and frequent was its occurrence. As a proof of the rage for duelling that existed it was a well-known historical fact that during the reign of Henry IV., in France alone 4,000 gentlemen were killed in duels, while 14,000 pardons to duellists were granted in the same reign. It only remained for him to move a hearty vote of thanks to Mr. Egerton Castle for the pleasure and instruction he had afforded that evening.

-the Annalen of Poggendorff-contains a very remarkable account of some researches on the excitation of magneto-electric machines, which are of great interest even to-day. The author, Dr. Sinsteden, was discussing the problem how to improve magnetoelectric generators, and in this paper he describes a method which produced an essential augmentation of their power far beyond anything previously attained. He begins by referring to the still earlier efforts of Stöhrer, who had increased the number of magnet poles from two to six and contrasts this with the "colossal" machine of Woolrich, which, while it had eight poles, had double as many armature coils or inductive coils as polar fields, together with a commutator which so changed the connections as to obviate discontinuity in the current. He then mentions how he has applied the same plan to a two pole magnetomachine, providing it with an armature having four inductive coils. He tested it by the amount of gas its current would evolve in a voltameter (namely, 1f cubic inches of mixed gas per minute). When he applied its current to excite electromagnets, he found that these were much more powerful than the original steel magnet of his first machine. Dr. Sinsteden thereupon makes the following remarks upon the excitation of the field-magnets of generators :—

"I cannot here forbear to draw attention to the circumstance that the steel magnet of my apparatus which has a constant portative force of 200 pounds, generates an induced current which, on its own part, excites an electro-magnet to more than double this portative force. This circumstance is, indeed, in itself noteworthy; but it appears to afford a means to augment up to an enormous degree ['bis ins Ungeheure'] the magneto-electric currents from a single steel magnet. For if one causes to rotate in front of the poles of this electro-magnet excited by the magneto-electric revolving apparatus, another four inductive coils, the iron core and windings of which were designed for a magnet with an attracting force of 500 pounds, then one would obtain from these four inductive coils a current the strength of which would evidently be at least double as great again as that of the first apparatus, and which in the voltameter would evolve six cubic inches of explosive gas in a minute, and would excite up an electro-magnet of proportional size to a portative force of 1,000 pounds. Nothing prevents one's causing to rotate in front of this second electro-magnet another four proportionately large inductive coils, the induced current of which excites a third electro-magnet, and again putting inductive coils opposite this, and so continuing this arrangement as long as one still controls mass and weight. In this way, one would very soon obtain induction currents which would leave far behind them the currents of the most gigantic hydroelectric apparatus of Children and of Hare. Their excitation would cost nothing, except the power which is necessary to set the inductors into rotatory

Pogg: Arn. lxxxiv., 186 (1851).

motion; and since in these electro-magnets no change of polarity occurs, they remain much more constantly charged, wherefore there would occur no disturbance by reason of the coercive force of the iron, and no disturbing reaction of the iron upon the spirals, and of the spirals upon the iron. These magneto-electric currents thus increased to an enormous strength would then be applicable to powermachines [i.e. motors] in the place of costly hydroelectric currents, over which they would have the important advantage that they occasion no current costs through the consumption of zinc and acids.

"Copper wires eight inches long, rather thicker wires of steel six inches long, formed into little spirals by rolling on a knitting-needle, are immediately made to glow through their whole length by the induced current of the machine, and melt off or burn scattering sparks. Platinum wires six inches long 1-18th of a line thick, wound in little spiral tubes, glow white hot throughout their length and give a blinding light. They frequently melted off, but could very easily be fused together again. The incandescence of all these wires always began from their middle whether the current had a continuous or an alternating direction."

After further narrating some experiments on the fusion of garnet and of porcelain, Dr. Sinsteden continues:-"As I had not at my disposal different thicknesses of platinum wire in order to form out of them a small tube which should reach just the highest white heat without melting, I attained this end by making a platinum wire spiral tube out of the wire which melted too easily, and which I dipped in a thin milk of lime and dried and incandesced in a flame. The thin coating of lime behaved quite well upon the platinum wire, which now no longer fused on repeated use, and as it appeared to me emitted a still more dazzling light than a dull platinum wire.

"These researches which were all made with one and the same combination of inductive spirals, which, by the way, can be operated in three different ways, may be regarded as a fair sample of the efficacy of my new machine; they show that a one-magnet machine may yield much more than one had expected of it, and it might therefore be of interest to many to learn to know the precise arrangement of it.”

The article gives a description of the details of the machine, and, in particular, of the commutator which was arranged to bring one set of coils into operation when another set was going out of operation, thereby furnishing a continuous current instead of a merely rectified one, and which also had auxiliary attachments for collecting alternating currents at will, or for making momentary contacts.

It seems strange that so striking an announcement of the method of separate excitation, of the concatenation of machines to produce an indefinitely great increase in the magneto-electric currents, of the application of dynamic power to drive generators in order to provide currents for driving motors, and of the application to incandescent lighting by platinum.

spirals covered with pyro-insulating materials, should have claimed so little notice. Moreover all this was published in 1851, five years before the invention of the Siemens' armature, the introduction of which gave so considerable an impulse to the use of magnetoelectric machines.

Correspondence.

AUTOMATIC COUPLERS.

There is, unfortunately, no means of answering Mr. T. R. Chalmers's very pertinent enquiry when he asks for the number of shunting operations and comparative ton-wagon loads on American and British railroads. Neither country gives returns by which any such comparison can be arrived at. Mr. Chalmers's reference to "Accidents from crossing and recrossing of the rails to the various sidings" by shunters, may be read as though he concludes such accidents were included in the coupling accident tables I give in my paper. These tables deal exclusively with accidents occurring in the act of coupling or uncoupling vehicles. There are no less than eighteen other columns in the returns which record accidents to servants connected with shunting-i.e., concerned in the movement of vehicles, and in these columns appear not a few casualties year after year, for which the present methods of coupling and uncoupling are directly or indirectly responsible, but which never find place in the column allotted to coupling and uncoupling.

The very work of moving vehicles by hydraulic capstans would seem to have nothing to do with coupling accidents, but so interlaced are all shunting operations with coupling and uncoupling vehicles, that each one of these eighteen other columns, which record about 3,500 accidents every year, will be lighter when automatic couplers are universal on British railways. The time at my disposal did not admit of more than a glimpse of the far-reaching extent of this subject, which not a railway man in this country yet fully understands.

T. A. BROCKELBANK.

Obituary.

SIR JAMES WESTLAND, K.C.S.I., whose death occurred on the 9th inst. at Weybridge, was a distinguished member of the Indian Civil Service, his principal work in that capacity having been performed in connection with the Financial Department of the Supreme Government. He was appointed Chief Commissioner of Assam in July, 1899, but retired from the service in October of the same year,