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Title
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en
Women Who Are Expert Fencers
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Date
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March 8, 1891
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volume
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69
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issue
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98
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page start
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13
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page end
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13
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content
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en
Women Who Are Expert Fencers
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They Learn the Use of Foils More Readily Than Do the Men
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Interest in the Art Is Rapidly Extending. Some Actresses and Society Women Who Are Adepts – The Costumes Worn.
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Strength is the fashion of the day among womankind. In the revival of athletics among women fencing has not kept pace with lawn-tennis, horseback or bicycle riding, but it easily holds the forth place in the list of sports. The women who fence gain in agility, grace and health – results which guarantee a perpetuation of the sport in its present place in feminine favor.
Women do not always practice the art from inclination alone. In the schools where they are prepared for dramatic and operatic careers fencing is one of the regular course studies. Proficiency in it imparts suppleness to the limbs and a graceful carriage, two essentials for success in the professional life.
Of those who practice fencing as one of the essentials to a career on the operatic stage, the greatest number are students at the National Conservatory of Music, 126 and 128 East Seventeenth street. There are four graded classes of young women in this academy, each having from fifteen to twenty members, who are regularly instructed by Regis Senae. The embryo actresses who study the art of the foils are chiefly pupils of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, otherwise known as the Lyceum Theater School of Acting. The classes there are taught by Lester Schaffner.
The subject of the illustration in this article is an ex-pupil of this school, Miss Olive Gates, how in professional life with Denman Thompson’s “Two Sisters” company.
Of young ladies in society who practice fneicng the members of the Berkeley Ladies’ Athletic Club must be given the first place. The committee on fencing is headed by Miss Margaret S. Mellen, and under its supervision daily classes in the art will meet in the gymnasium at 23 West Forty-fourth street. The club has 375 members, and the foil classes are attended by a large proportion of them. Among the pupils are representatives of the Iselin, Alexander, Barlow, Drexel, Hoe, Huntington, Choate, Kip, Marie, Minturn and Tiffany families. Both Jay Gonld’s daughters, Anna and Helen Miller, are members of the class.
Among the most indefatigable advocates of fencing among the women in society are the Havemeyer “set.” Mrs. T. A. Havemeyer chaperons a bevy of ladies of this family to Senac’s rooms three times a week for instruction. Other ladies who love the art are the Misses Turnure of Fifth avenue, Miss Kate Drexel of Madison avenue and her sisters, Mrs. John C. Osgood of the Buckingham Hotel, Mrs. Stephen M. Tyng of Fifth avenue, Miss Rebecca Allison of Madison avenue and Mrs. Prescott of West Fifty-eight street.
Skill with the foils is not an accomplishment confined to the members of the Four Hundred in our town. Brooklyn’s society girls are as keen in the sport. Four of them who are more than ordinarily clever are the Misses Greta Beere, Louise Taber Cobb, Dell M. Elliott and Etta Lansing Wentz.
A large proportion of the women who fence are members of the theatrical profession. Rose Coghian is very good with the foils, and in one of her plays, “Joan,” she takes part of a duel with swords. Mrs. Langtry and Mrs. James Brown-Potter are also skillful fencers. To-day, among the actresses who are studying the art may be mentioned Miss Urquhart and Miss Laura Russell of the Casino company; Miss Anna O’Keefe of the “Castles in the Air” company; Miss Gertrude Sears, Miss Alice Fischer and Miss Matsie Burns of the “Reckless Temple” cast.
When the Vienna lady fencers were showing in this city a number of theatrical young ladies determined to organize a similar troupe. They practiced for some months and acquired considerable ability with the foils, but by this time the interest in fencing as a star attraction had faded among the theatrical managers, and the enterprising young women found it impossible to get a profitable engagement. Consequently the troupe disbanded, but a number of the members continued to practice fencing, and they formed an organization called the Ladies’ Fencing Club and meet daily for practice. Among its members are Helen Leyton, Miss Madge Olinger of the “County Fair” cast, the Misses Adie Palmer, Gertie Cuyler, Alice Weeks, Jessie Spencer, Lily Howard, Virginia Russel and Alice Dunham. The meeting place of the club is the fencing academy of Professor Lester Schaffner.
The young woman who takes up fencing must take a first course of twelve lessons to learn how to hold the feet, bend the knee, handle the foil and make the guard movements. She will be required to wear a mask from the first lesson, chiefly to prevent the foil being thrust into the face by some awkward action.
Then will follow another course of twelve lessons. At the end of this series the young woman should be able to make an attack, parry a return and follow with an attacking thrust in the correct style. In twelve lessons more the pupil will have a good working knowledge of the art, and thereafter will be able to hold her own with any adversary.
Foils are furnished in the schools, but amateurs often buy their own, paying from $5 to $10 a pair. Much money is often paid out for fancy mountings. Many women have their foils mounted in gold and jewels. The fencing masters import foils in quantities and mount them to suit their customers.
The costume worn by women in fencing costs in accordance with the quality of the materials used, and, be it said in a whisper, the fashionable standing of the maker of the suit. But all women wear a snug-fitting waist with a buckskin padded plastron over the breast. The best dress is an accordion plaited skirt, reaching to the knee. The leg covering must reveal to the instructor any false movements of the limbs, and high stocking or loose tights are usually worn.
The shoes have leather or kid uppers and flexible rawhide soles. They are without heels, and the sole of the right pump, sometimes of both, projects an inch beyond the upper. They cost from $3 to $7 a pair. The gloves are of dogskin, and cost from $4 to $10 a pair. They have stiff gauntlets of patent leather, and the right glove has a padded back and fingers.
The illustrations show some of the positions of a young lady in a fencing bout with an instructor. The first lesson taught by the master is to preserve the “guard,” which is the point covered by the crossing of the foil points. The body then, at which the adversary’s foils are pointed, is a target divided into four quarters. The left upper quarter section is “tierce,” the right upper section “quarte.” The lower sections are lower tierce and lower quarte. In a duel, for instance, the contestants while preserving their guard are all absorbed in making a thrust en tierce or en quarte, this piercing the human target on approved fencing principles.
The salute is used in fencing bouts, but not in duels. It is to fencing what the overture is to an opera. In the fourth cut the salute is shown in the disengagement from the line of quarte, and in the sixth illustration the close of the salute is represented.
The first picture shows a parry en seconde in response to a thrust in the lower tierce. Next comes a lunge in the line of tierce, parried in tierce. In the third cut an attack en quarte is parried on that line, and in the fifth a response is made to a disengagement from tierce.
The fencing masters who make a specialty of teaching women are Lester Schaffner and Regis Senac. The former is the master at the Lyceum School of Acting, and the latter instructor at the National Conservatory and the Berkeley Ladies’ Athletic Club. In addition they each have fencing schools of their own.
Some women who are adepts at fencing whose names have not hitherto been mentioned are Miss Estelle Hastings, Miss Noble, Mrs. Beaumont Smith, Miss Cridge, Miss Adele Cary, Miss Fanny B. Seaman, Miss Louise M. Fowler, Miss Virginia H. Montague, Mrs. Clark R. Wright, Mrs. F. Eshner and Miss Mamie T. Craddock.
The young ladies in this year’s class at the Lyceum School of Acting are the Misses Dickman, Jeanne, Guenn, Parry, Shearer, Holden, Richmond, Vaughan, Marks, Rose, Soule and Starkey. The members of the advanced class, who are all expert fencers, are the Misses Edith Chapman, Bella Martin, Ethel Chase Sprague, Kathryn Arnold, Mamie Heymann, Bertine Robinson, Mamie Buford, Adelaide Gray, Josephine Forrest, Stella Kenny, Edith Totten, Mrs. Tyree and Miss Kirke.
The interest in fencing is steadily increasing among women. They find learning the art an easy task and they acquire it faster than men. The main point in graceful fencing lies in holding the foil The perfect fencing hand must play to the action of the point, as the masters say, and, like the bridle hand and the pianist’s touch, it is a natural gift. Women, as a rule, have better fencing “hands” than men, but course, they seldom equal men as combatants. – N. Y. Sunday Press
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depicts
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Illustration : "Thrust and Parry en Seconde"
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Illustration : "Lunge en Tierce"
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Illustration : "Thrust and Parry en Quarte"
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Illustration : "The Salute, Disengagement en Quarte"
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Illustration : "Thrust and Parry en Tierce"
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Illustration : "At the Close of the Salute"
