.
Backed up by science, you can both talk and act in a way which is likely
to lead to a peaceful solution of a difficulty, whereas, if the science
is absent, you _dare_ not, from very uncertainty, use those very words
which you know ought to be used on the occasion.

There are necessarily a good many difficulties to be faced in becoming
at all proficient in the art of self-defence, but the advantages to be
gained are doubtless very great.

An expert swordsman, and by this I mean one who is really _au fait_ with
any weapon you may put into his hand, who is also a good boxer and
wrestler, is a very nasty customer for any one or even two footpads to
make up to.

The worst of it is that it takes so long to become really good in any
branch of athletics. When you know all, or nearly all, that is to be
learned, you get a bit stiff and past work! But this, after all, need
not trouble one much, since it applies to all relations of life. As a
wise man once said, with a touch of sorrow and regret in his tone, "By
the time you have learned how to live, you die."

THE UMBRELLA.

As a weapon of modern warfare this implement has not been given a fair
place. It has, indeed, too often been spoken of with contempt and
disdain, but there is no doubt that, even in the hands of a strong and
angry old woman, a gamp of solid proportions may be the cause of much
damage to an adversary. Has not an umbrella, opened suddenly and with a
good flourish, stopped the deadly onslaught of the infuriated bull, and
caused the monarch of the fields to turn tail? Has it not, when
similarly brought into action, been the means of stopping a runaway
horse, whose mad career might otherwise have caused many broken legs and
arms?

If, then, there are these uses beyond those which the dampness of our
insular climate forces upon us, it may be well to inquire how they can
be brought to bear when a man, who is an expert swordsman, or one who
has given attention to his fencing lessons, is attacked without anything
in his hands save the homely umbrella.

It is, of course, an extremely risky operation prodding a
fellow-creature in the eye with the point of an umbrella; and I once
knew a man who, being attacked by many roughs, and in danger of losing
his life through their brutality, in a despairing effort made a
desperate thrust at the face of one of his assailants. The point entered
the eye _and the brain_, and the man fell stone dead at his feet. I
would t