about it in those days--was a very simple affair; and we
recognize in it the origin and foundation of all the sword exercises,
and all the games in which single-stick, lance, and bayonet play a
prominent part.

As the question of who picked up the first stone and threw it at his
fellow-man, or when the first branch of a tree was brought down on the
unsuspecting head of another fellow-man, are questions for learned men
to decide, and are of no real importance, I shall not allow myself to go
on with any vague speculations, but shall turn at once to an old English
sport which, though sometimes practised at assaults-at-arms in the
present day, takes us back to Friar Tuck, Robin Hood, and

"Maid Marian, fair as ivory bone,
Scarlet and Much and Little John."

CHAPTER II.

THE QUARTER-STAFF.

According to Chambers's "Encyclopaedia," the quarter-staff was "formerly
a favourite weapon with the English for hand-to-hand encounters." It was
"a stout pole of heavy wood, about six and a half feet long, shod with
iron at both ends. It was grasped in the middle by one hand, and the
attack was made by giving it a rapid circular motion, which brought the
loaded ends on the adversary at unexpected points."

"Circular motion" and "shod with iron" give a nasty ring to this
description, and one pictures to one's self half a barge-pole,
twirled--"more Hibernico"--with giant fingers, bearing down on one.

Whether the fingers of our ancestors were ever strong enough to effect
this single-handed twirling or not must remain a matter of doubt, but we
may rest assured that in the quarter-staff we have, probably, the
earliest form of offensive weapon next to the handy stone. If Darwin is
correct, we can easily imagine one of our gorilla ancestors picking up a
big branch of a tree with which to hit some near member of his family.
This, to my mind, would be playing elementary quarter-staff, and the
game would have advanced a step if the assaulted one--possibly the lady
gorilla--had seized another branch and retaliated therewith.

The modern quarter-staff is supposed to be rather longer than the six
and a half feet prescribed by the above-quoted authority, and I imagine
it originally derived its name from being grasped with one hand at a
quarter of its length from the middle, and with the other hand at the
middle.

Thus, in the diagram (Fig. 1), if A E represents a quarter-staff eight
feet long, divided into four equal two-foot