Sword & Foil : Fencers and Fencing in This City
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Sword & Foil : Fencers and Fencing in This City
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November 2, 1890
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SWORD AND FOIL.
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Fencers and Fencing in This City.
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Notable Interest Shown in the Science.
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Some San Franciscans Who Have Attained Proficiency With the Rapier.
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It is more than probable that an impetus is to be given to the study of fencing in San Francisco, which within the past two years or more has rapidly come into popular favor with our local athletes and boxers.
It is a recognized fact that fencing brings into play and action the faculties of the body to an extent to which no other exercise can lay claim. By it the muscles of the arms, legs and chest are given due but not excessively violent exercise, which the eyes and nerves are proportionately benefited. Quickness and agility are largely conduced, and with the development of the faculties, mental and physical, comes a grace of position and movement, which add so much to the beauty of the “human form divine.”
There are in San Francisco several schools where fencing is made a prominent feature, and at our leading athletic clubs the foils are becoming more and more popular.
A leading institution of the kind here is the Academy of Physical Culture of Professor Louis Tronchet, under whose tuition many of our prominent swordsmen have acquired their knowledge of the art, and who is well and widely known as the teacher of fencing at the Olympic Club. Mr. Tronchet is the champion swordsman and fencer of the two Americas, having grained that proud distinction two and a half years ago in New York. He is a native of France, and was born in the Department of Haute Savoie, about thirty-five years ago, stands five feet eight inches in his slippers, has a well-knit form, a carriage at once graceful and easy, and in which agility and suppleness are the dominating characteristics. Before leaving his native country he attained distinction in his profession and filled the position of master of fencing at the Normal Military School in Paris. Subsequently he lived for a time in London, where he first heard of the celebrity attained by Regis Senac of New York, then the champion of America. Young Tronchet was fired with the ambition to meet the redoubtable Senac, and soon afterward crossed the ocean. This was in the early part of 1887, and for a time he was engaged as a fencing master in New York. After considerable difficulty a match was arranged with the champion, and on March 28th of the same year the two masters crossed swords, or foils, at the Cosmopolitan before a large assemblage of enthusiastic admirers of the sport. The The battle was well contested, sharps and decisive. Victory perched upon the banner of Louis Tronchet, and he became the proud professor of the championship of America, which he now holds against all corners. Coming to San Francisco soon after Mr. Tonchet opened a fencing school on Sacramento street. He there formed many friends and admirers and was offered and accepted the professorship at the club mentioned. He also opened the O’Farrell-street academy referred to, and since been fully occupied, having “turned out” a number of gentlemen and lady fencers.
To Gordon Blanding is to be accorded the honor of the leading place among local amateur fencers and swordsmen. Mr. Blanding is expert and dexterous in the use of the foils, and devotes much of the time free from his professional duties to the practice of fencing, and regrets that he cannot give more time to it.
G. H. Buckingham, the real estate agent, stands in the front rank of our local fencers, and considering as he does that it is the most gentlemanly of exercises, hopes that fencing will receive a much greater share of attention here than has hitherto been the case.
F. Chapins of the Phoenix Assurance Company of London is also certainly entitled to prominence in this connection. He excels in this, his favorite exercise, and his manner and general appearance may be said to be that of one born to the use of the foils.
E. S. Heller, a young attorney of this city, is an enthusiastic admirer of all manly sports and games, and is particularly expert with the gloves. He has made very satisfactory progress in the science of fencing, which, of course, requires more than time to perfect one’s self in than does boxing.
S. Duncan Hayne, also a member of the legal profession, while proficient in many athletic sports, finds fencing the most desirable and advantageous of all, and much of the time not taken up in his practice is spent in his favorite exercise. Mr. Hayne would be glad to see a boom in this manly and gentlemanly sport.
Messrs. Hammersly and Gunn, both well known in the athletic circles and members of the Olympic Club, are well up in the mysteries of the sword and foil.
Eugene Meyer, the president of the London, Paris and American Bank, though a recent addition to the ranks of our local fencers, has made very satisfactory progress in the use of the foils, with the certainty of taking a higher rank in due course of time, as he takes much interest in this healthful recreation.
C. N. Felton Jr. is another fencer of prominence and an admirer of the art who strongly advocates a more general attention thereto as a pleasurable and in every way a desirable exercise in the clubs and elsewhere.
It should be added that there are a number of young society ladies in San Francisco who have added fencing to their accomplishments, and who have found it advantageous to health as well as an agreeable exercise and reaction.
