April is looking up: my son was born April 1st and the wife and kid are both doing well. I hope to get back in the swing of things in a week or two, but sleep is short right now, so bear with me.

Zaap…zaaap-clack-clack-clack…zaaap. Just the sound and spark of an electric weapon triggers something from childhood that makes you step back when you see and hear the electricity arc through the air between the leads. The two most common forms of today’s electric "stun" technology, both of which can take advantage of that reaction, are the stun gun and the taser. [N1]. The early antecedents of both of these devices can be found in the records of the United States Patent Office and a review of the patent record shows that the development of electroshock devices was first aimed at incapacitating animals before later being extended to humans.

Development of the Stun Gun

Electricity was written about as early as 6oo B.C.E. when philosopher Thales of Miletus found that amber, after being rubbed by wool, would attract feathers, thereby resulting in a practical demonstration of static electricity. By 46 C.E., Roman physician Scribonus Largus introduced the electrical powers of fish into clinical medicine as a cure for headache and gout. However, it was not until electricity was first “bottled” in the 18th century that large numbers of electrical experiments (and mistakes) with humans and animals arose.

One of the earliest experimenters, Petrus Musschenbroek, is a candidate for discoverer of the Leyden jar (he was from Leiden, Netherlands), which is a device used to store static electricity by separating differently charged ions. It behaves similarly to a capacitor in that it stores a built-up charge and releases it quickly. When touching the wrong part of a charged Leyden jar in 1746, and consequently completing a circuit, Musschenbroek may have been the first to experience what countless electricians, unsupervised children, and stun-gunned subjects would eventually experience in more recent centuries: “Suddenly I received in my right hand a shock of such violence that my whole body was shaken as by a lightning stroke…the arm and body were affected in a manner more terrible than I can express. In a word, I believed that I was done for.” Musschenbroek had just received a really strong electrical shock, one of the first man-made electrical discharges powerful enough to be frightening. Even more fascinating is that the charge was created purely through static electricity: typically, a large wool pad was spun on a glass globe to store a charge inside a connected Leyden jar.

Musschenbroek’s discovery led to the first crude stun guns: the same century a number of European demonstrators with charged Leyden jars ran around killing birds and other animals under the guise of “scientific demonstrations.” Except for proof of lethal effect, these demonstrations added little to the body of knowledge regarding the interaction of animals and electricity. However, in a series of experiments starting around 1780, Luigi Galvani, at the University of Bologna, found that the electric current delivered by a Leyden jar or a rotating static electricity generator would cause the contraction of muscles in the legs of dead frogs and other animals when applied to the muscle or to the nerve. The following illustration shows, among other things, frog legs with leads attached on the left, a static electricity generator middle left, and a Leyden jar on the far right.

Whereas Musschenbroek’s experiments led the way in showing that pain and possibly death could result from exposure to electricity, Galvani’s frog experiments became the basis to later show that nerves could be directly stimulated, and eventually to show that electricity could be used to incapacitate humans.

In the meantime, the manual generation of electricity was limited to static electricity generators until Michael Faraday invented the dynamo in 1831. In a dynamo, electromotive force is developed in a conductor when it is moved through a magnetic field. Of course, a hand-cranked dynamo hardly leads to the development of a practical handheld self-defense device. For that, the development of a practical battery was required. In 1800, Alessandro Volta had created the first chemical battery, a voltic pile constructed of different metals and brine. Even so, the first commercially viable battery design was not produced until 1886, when Carl Gassner patented the carbon-zinc dry cell. Gassner’s basic concept is still used in many modern batteries.

Once all the elements were in place, it was only a short time before the first electrical shock device was developed. In 1890, inventor John Burton, of Wichita, Kansas, patented the “Electric Prod Pole,” or electric cattle prod. Burton envisioned the device as helping direct cattle without piercing the valuable hides like common non-electric cattle prods.

The patent had two basic designs, one powered by battery (Figure 1) and one by an internal dynamo (Figure 2). The design is simple, but the important elements are already in place. In Figure 1, the prod is simply a battery, a coil of wound wire, and two positive and negative prongs. A battery by itself would have too little voltage to overcome the non-conductivity of an animal’s hide (resistance). It appears that the coil would act to step up the voltage enough so that the current could flow through an animal’s hide and cause a localized shock. In 1915, a patent was issued for a similar battery operated design that appeared to do little more than provide a new method to hold the cap on and add an on/off switch (an important safety feature).

Burton’s dynamo design, on the other hand, produced its own electricity by pushing the prod against the animal, which collapsed the handle a short distance. Doing so would then activate the ratchets at F and G (Figure 2) causing the S-prime shaft to rotate. The shaft rotated the armature through the magnets N and S, creating a current. It seems unlikely that the dynamo, through such a meager application of mechanical movement, could create enough current to cause the desired effect, especially without a coil such as used in Figure 1 to step up the voltage to overcome the resistance of the animal’s hide.

In 1939, Hansen and Cough had patented a prod with only superficial differences from earlier battery-powered designs, the main difference being an extension that could be added to the end of the prod to better reach cattle in a pen. Then in July 1940, Leon Paul Mongan patented a combination flashlight/cattle prod for those moving cattle before daybreak or after dusk. Internally, the battery-operated device sent current to a vibrator that converted the direct current (DC) to alternating current (AC). The current was then stepped up through a transformer to high voltage AC and went to the terminal contact points. A capacitor limited the amount of arcing between the contacts. The contacts, partially retractable, completed the circuit when pressed against an animal. The previous month, Ernest Jefferson had also obtained a patent for a safer prod with a pair of spring tension terminals that had to be pushed in against the hide of the animal for the device to operate.

Due to refinements through the years, the 1940s cattle prods began taking an internal form similar to modern stun guns. Not only were the internals similar, but some models even outwardly resembled modern stun batons:

However, it was well before the 1940s when inventions began to appear that applied electroshock technology to humans. By 1912, the idea of using a portable electric device for self-defense and law enforcement had appeared. In an amazing, as well as an amazingly hazardous, invention, Jeremiah Creedon of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania patented a set of “Electric Gloves” to be used in “subduing unruly persons” and “resisting attacks.” The device consisted of a pair of gloves with leads connected by wires to a belt on which a battery and an induction coil were mounted. While the method of application differed, the design was basically the same as used in the cattle prod. In either design, the relatively low voltage (compared to modern stun guns) means that the effect would probably be limited to localized pain where the contacts touched the subject, rather than incapacitation.

German inventor Franz Lollert came up with a similar device in 1926, although slightly less cumbersome. He hoped it would “give to every person carrying something equivalent to a training in jiu-jitsu.” Notably, Lollert supposedly had a demonstration model that he used with some success. He even had interest from the German police in purchasing the device. Here is Lollert posing with his invention:

An almost identical device was patented in 1933 that added another coil and substituted a different design for the contacts in the gloves. Its appearance was very similar to the original 1912 device and the inventor, like Lollert before him, was active in marketing the device to police forces. Cirilo Hernandez Diaz was a Cuban inventor who worked in Latin America as a construction superintendent for an American company. He used the induction coil from a Model T Ford to step up the voltage to around 1,500 volts and reduce the amperage to a level that would not burn anyone touched by the gloves.

While most of the previous devices included an induction coil, Diaz was the first to articulate an important safety and efficacy principle behind electric stun weaponry: the need to increase the voltage and reduce the amperage from the battery source. High voltage passes through poorer conductors, such as hide, skin, or clothing, better than low voltage. If the power source remains the same, stepping up the voltage will also reduce the amperage produced, which is an important point, since most adults will go into ventricular fibrillation at currents around .1 amperes.

Diaz pitched the gloves as a method to quell rioters and subdue individuals resisting arrest. After a demonstration to the New York City police in 1935, Diaz then demonstrated the device to reporters by “subduing unsuspecting entrants to the office of the inventor.” (New York Times, June 23, 1935). No mention was made whether any of the surprise subjects later punched the inventor in the nose. According to Diaz, then deputy police commissioner Martin Meany requested a price quotation on quantities of the device. If the procurement was ever made, it doesn’t appear that the use of the gloves by the police ever became widespread.

While the designs were moving in the right direction by the 1940s, it took the development of the taser in the late 1960s/early 1970s to spawn commercial sales of the handheld stun gun. In the meantime, law enforcement adopted cattle prods for use during the early 1960s civil rights protests. In conjunction with fire hoses and wooden batons, law enforcement utilized cattle prods to painfully shock protesters and suppress marches. The similarity between stun batons and cattle prods has led many critics to decry any law enforcement use of stun batons as an attack with cattle prods. Considering the shared development history, such charges may be wrong in fact, but not in principle: stun guns and cattle prods are a question of differing voltages more than any other factors. The low voltage of the prod is intended to cause localized pain, whereas the higher voltage of the stun gun is intended to overwhelm the human nervous system and cause temporary incapacitation.

That flurry of activity in the 1970s brought a resurgence of interest in wearable devices such as the electric gloves. A 1982 patent was issued for a lightweight harness worn on the hand that allowed current to flow through contacts located at the end of the index finger. It was probably just a coincidence that E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial was also released in 1982, because the patent application was made in the late 1970s.

Another electric glove was patented in 1983, then in 1992 came a terrifying set of electric trousers or chaps designed to discourage livestock from crowding human feeders. This in turn led to a November 2005 patent for a women’s electric jacket. The jacket has on/off controls in the sleeve and, once activated, a visible electric arc on the shoulder to scare off aggressors. The inventors are cognizant of the devices weaknesses, warning against activating the device in wet conditions as well as the danger of exposing non-insulated body parts to it, such as the legs or head. [N3]. Those warnings are clearly ones that could be applied to all the wearable devices generally. Considering the patent history of these devices, it is interesting that the electric jacket inventors recommend against using the jacket for protection against animals because of their different physiology. Of course, an electric jacket only seems half-suited for defense against most animals anyway, being a passive device with large gaps in coverage and vulnerable to puncture.

There are variations on the theme, but the way I first heard it was in the context that a license was required to carry the cane because of its status as a weapon. This simply did not jibe with my impression of the Georgian era. In fact, I had recently seen a Victorian illustration that satirized the overabundance of the gentleman’s walking cane and the difficulty it caused when navigating afoot. H. G. Walters similarly described the danger of the ever-present but inattentive cane flourishers:

The man who has a habit of carrying his walking-stick horizontally under his arm, so that when he whisks round, which be constantly does to look behind him or stare in shop windows, it hits anybody near him, is, equally with him who swings it round and round, an enemy of the human race.

I also knew that by 1900, it was reported that any man in London above the rank of a "coster" (a fruit, fish, meat seller; anyone selling from a cart) carried a cane. Holliday, Robert C. The Walking-Stick Papers. NY: 1918. Again, this made it difficult to account the licensing idea, although these were all later occurrences.

Therefore, with skepticism in hand, I sailed into the seas of the internet tubes to discover the mythical headlands of the cane license. I was initially chagrined to find that no less a source than wikipedia mentioned the 18th century licensing requirements as well as the difficulty of procuring such as license:

It is apparently the case that a license was required to carry a cane in London during the 18th century^{[citation needed]}, possibly because of the use as a weapon, in essence a fighting stick.The process that was needed to gain this license was very long and it had been known to take a long time to finish the process; thus, most people at the time did not gain the license.

I will admit, I was taken aback upon reading that passage. However, I found it heartening that a wikipedia editor must have been, if not skeptical, at least concerned that there was no citation for the proposition. Therefore I pressed on and found that common story repeated on a number of cane sites that discusses 18th century cane licensing. Here’s the most detailed account I could discover, which even includes language from a supposed cane license (site name withheld to protect the foolish):

In 1702, the men of London were required to have a license in order to carry a walking stick or cane. It was considered a privilege to walk with a cane therefore they were required to have a licence. Without a license they were excluded from the privilege. One example of a cane license reads:

You are hereby required to permit the bearer of this cane to pass and repasts through the streets of London, or anyplace within ten miles of it, without theft or molestation: Provided that he does not walk with it under his arm, brandish it in the air, or hang it on a button, in which case it shall be forfeited, and I hereby declare it forfeited to anyone who shall think it safe to take it from him.
- Signed________. (Source: Lester and Goerke Accessories of Dress, Peoria, IL. The Manual Arts Press.)

I assume whoever posted that never read through and finished the last sentence. However, at least now I had a source and a quote. Accessories of Dress by Lester and [O]erke (2004) is on Google books, although the relevant passage is not part of the preview. The quote was easy enough to attribute, though, and you can see it referenced in Carolyn Beckingham’s Is Fashion a Right? (2005) or a reprint of the quoted essay that followed a century after the original.

It turns out, somewhat comically, that the essay was originally published in the Tatler in December 1709 as a humorous critique of popular fashion. It was attributed to "Isaac Bickerstaff," who was comprised of a group of essayists, including Joseph Addison and Richard Steele, who satirized fashion, among other things, under the name Isaac Bickerstaff. Apparently no less a satirist than Jonathan Swift started the Bickerstaff persona to mess with John Partridge. Steele, upon starting up the Tatler, included "Isaac Bickerstaff" on board as an editor.

Later that same December, Bickerstaff "outlawed" the new puffy petticoat fashions he thought made woman appear pregnant. It is ironic that the myth declaring that licenses were once required to carry a cane in Britain is derived from a 300 year-old version of a Mr. Blackwell fashion critique.

For a general history of the walking cane, see Man and His Walking Stick by H. G. Walters (1898).

The Bare Essentials

For those that want to jump right in, here is The Cane as a Weapon. This is a cleaner version than the PDF that is floating around online. For future reference, you can also find it under the reprints tab at top right.

The original version contained only 12 photographs of Cunningham showing his method, yet included numerous drill sequences for practice. I therefore highly recommend that you also purchase Tony Wolf’s expanded version of The Cane as a Weapon which includes more than 170 photos to clarify Cunningham’s system. No, I don’t get a cut if you buy this book, I’m recommending it because Tony consistently puts out quality work. Click on the cover to check it out.

One more resource you will want to keep an eye on if you decide to study the Cunningham system is Chris Amendola’s blog entitled, appropriately enough, "AC Cunningham’s ‘The Cane as A Weapon.’" Chris is blogging his thoughts, notes, and discoveries as he proceeds to work his own way through the Cunningham cane system, as well as drawing out parallels from Cunningham’s other manual, Sabre and Bayonet.

Why I think The Cane as a Weapon is so Good

There are any number of reasons why I think this manual is so good. First is that Cunningham has an exquisite sense of what will work and what will not work from different postures and positions. He logically breaks down blows and parries, and places great emphasis on which of the three simple guards is best for any particular situation (eg., by not adopting a hostile en guarde position if not necessary).

His experience with the bayonet gives his work the versatility of using short, strong strokes with a double handed grip for close encounters and multiple attackers as well as movement, movement, movement. He does not show any grappling with the cane, which I believe is very sensible.

The footwork is clearly explained and has all the bases covered. He discusses the importance of targeting, and is cognizant that some strikes with a cane are less powerful than others.

More than any other single reason I could name, I liked this book because I found myself nodding at pretty everything Cunningham wrote. Quite simply, my experience tells me that Cunningham got it right. I may be wrong, but I would be surprised if anyone with much cane or stick fighting experience read this and viewed it in an overall negative light.

One note for the user, if Cunningham describes a "right cut," he is referring to a strike that proceeds from the left to the right. So for example, a high right cut will go from your left towards your right and strike the assailant on the right side of his head.

Cunningham’s History

You cannot really see much in this newspaper clipping, but I was impressed that the newspapers a century ago would not only print something useful, but do it with such a great layout:

Andrew Chase Cunningham was born into upper class New York society in 1858; his middle name Chase was the family name on his mother’s side. He entered the U.S. Naval Academy in 1874 and graduated in 1879. Like many midshipmen, Cunningham married immediately upon graduation. He then went active duty until 1883 when he resigned to go to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. After graduating Rensselaer, he worked as a civil engineer for various companies and had a child at some point along the way. The trail stumbles after 1887 because that’s when Rensselaer’s alumni entry for Cunningham was published.

It is known that he later went to work for the U.S. Navy for a number of years, either located in Annapolis, Washington D.C., or somewhere in between. He must have went back active duty rather than as a civilian, because four years was too brief a period to be promoted to Lieutenant Commander. By 1912 he was a Naval Inspector of Public Works and had worked as a civil engineer for the Navy for some years.

In the early 1900s he was active in fencing and in 1904 helped guide the Naval Academy fencing team along with longtime Academy Fencing Master Prof. A. J. (Antoine Joseph) Corbesier. Corbesier deserves study in his own right, a Belgian that ran the physical drills and the fencing and bayonet programs at the Naval Academy for more than forty years. Corbesier published a couple of his own sword manuals: Theory of Fencing, with the Small-Sword Exercise, and Principles of Squad Instruction for the Broadsword. Cunningham, who possessed a reputation as a fencer even as a midshipman, would have trained under Corbesier in fencing when he was a student thirty years prior.

In 1906 Cunningham published his first manual, Sabre and Bayonet, but I know nothing about it.

In the 1900s, Cunningham was a member of the prestigious Washington Fencing Club (WFC). The WFC was upper crust, on the New York Athletic Club level, and did not allow women as members. If you were not an illustrious, or at least well-connected military officers or diplomat, there was little need to apply. Cunningham eventually became a member of the governing board.

In 1912, even though part of Navy, his expertise as a swordsman was so great that he was consulted by the army when evaluating a new cavalry saber design that Cunningham looked favorably upon. The submitter was a young Second Lieutenant who later became known as General George S. Patton.

Sources Consulted

Amendola, Chris. AC Cunningham’s “The Cane as A Weapon” Blog (2008)
Cunningham, A. C. The Cane as a Weapon. (1912)
Nason, Henry (ed.). Biographical Record of the Officers and Graduates of the Renssaeler Polytechnic Institute (1887)
New York Times, various issues
Wolf, Tony. The Cane as a Weapon by A.C. Cunningham. (2006)

Here’s the official carnival link: Carnival of Martial Arts #6 Great Books

My comments on this month’s carnival:

First, John Vesia’s review of Martial Arts Madness on his Martial Views blog caught my eye. Martial Arts Madness is a book which I had bought some time ago and never read after cracking it open and seeing what Morris was about. Glenn Morris passed away in 2006, so I’ll temper my comments, but suffice it to say he was pretty far out there with his talk of qi, psychic powers, etc., and that’s not really my thing.

OTOH, John points out that even if you don’t agree with it, Morris is an entertaining writer, and his book contains chapters like "The Jean-Claude-Killing-Machine Syndrome" and "Martial Master as Sex Stud" that do sound pretty interesting, so maybe I’ll give it a second chance.

In the same vein, Patrick Parker at Mokuren Dojo always has something interesting of his own to say, so I read his post discussing Richard Strozzi-Heckler’s Warrior Spirit. Looks like Dave at AikiThoughts reviewed the same book, along with Angry White Pyjamas. Warrior Spirit was yet another one I picked up based on some random recommendation and quickly realized that it was not going to be for me. Pat and Dave both hit a number of points, and both reinforce my conviction that I won’t be reading it unless it becomes relevant to some article I end up writing.

I better stop there while there’s still plenty left in the carnival for you to discover on your own. To see the rest, check out Black Belt Mama’s site. Also, don’t forget to submit an entry for next month’s carnival. It will be hosted by me and the theme is going to be "Spread the Love." Well, the title will actually be something that sounds less potentially pornographic, but the idea is that I would like everyone to tell their readers about a martial blog or three that they read and enjoy, especially if it’s someone we don’t normally see in the Carnival.

Lastly, as for my personal recommendations, I’m interested in the whole spectrum of martial arts and I find myself going back to these three works most often (click on the covers for more info and ordering):

Martial Arts in the Modern World (edited by Green & Svinth). This is a collection of well-researched essays that discuss the transmission of martial arts from the countries of origin to where they are practiced today. For example, it covers Taekwondo’s origins in Korea and its transplant to the U.S.; how judo proceeded to South America, became Brazilian Jiu-jitsu, then traveled to the U.S. with mixed martial arts; how African martial arts were carried through the Diaspora, and plenty of other topics. Highly recommended.

Martial Arts of the World: an Encyclopedia. Warning! This two volume set is insanely expensive. On the other hand, this and the encyclopedia listed below are the only martial arts encyclopedias worth a damn. If you have money to blow, pick it up, otherwise pester your library until they buy a copy. This is without a doubt the single best serious resource covering martial arts across the globe.

The Original Martial Arts Encyclopedia (Corcoran & Farkas). This is an oldie but goodie. Some of the info is dated, but it is still the best source for the introduction of martial arts, particularly karate, to the U.S. over the last 40 years. Best part about it is you can usually get it for a song.

It is the opinion of the State Athletic Commission that Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) competitions are not legal in Maryland, but a bill before the Maryland General Assembly may change that.

Sen. Joan Carter Conway, a Baltimore Democrat, and Del. Kirill Reznik (he studies Kempo!), a Montgomery County Democrat, have introduced respective Senate (SB 649) and House (HB 795) bills that would legalize MMA by giving the State Athletic commission oversight.

State regulation of athletic competitions depends on a State’s particular statutes and agency regulations. Some states allow any competition that they do not specifically regulate, whereas Maryland falls on the other side and disallows any striking competitions not regulated.

Currently, more than half the states in the U.S. allow both amateur and professional MMA competitions. For a comprehensive listing of all states, see the International Kickboxing Federation listings.

If passed in Maryland, the new law would require the State Athletic Commission to promulgate regulations for MMA competitions, similar to those already existing for boxing, kickboxing, and wrestling. Likely Maryland’s regulations would follow New Jersey’s Mixed Martial Arts Unified Rules of Conduct.

Unfortunately, agency regulations are promulgated through a long notice and comment procedure where proposed regulations are drafted, then reviewed by agencies and respective counsel, and then published for public comment. Agencies then review the public comments before finalizing the regulations and republishing. This process is not quick and it is doubtful that MMA competitions will be taking place in Maryland anytime in 2008 even if the current bills are passed.

Even that is not a done deal, as there are many reasons why a particular bill may be held up in committee, fail to be passed into law, or just turned into useless sausage by the grinding political process.

If you are at all interested in seeing MMA in Maryland, the best thing you can do is contact your district’s State Senators and Delegates (i.e., not your U.S. Senators and Congressmen) and let them know by telephone, email, or letter.

You can find the contact information for the Maryland elected officials representing your area here: http://mdelect.net/. Let them know you are a voter that supports Mixed Martial Arts and ask them to vote in favor of Senate Bill 649 and House Bill 795. 

Big thanks to Ground Control’s John Rallo who has been pushing for this for years.

Current Maryland regulations and laws regarding boxing, kickboxing, and wrestling:

Maryland Athletic Commission Regulations (COMAR)

Subtitle 14 STATE ATHLETIC COMMISSION

09.14.01 General Provisions
09.14.02 Applications and Licensing
09.14.03 Boxing Contracts and Sanctions
09.14.04 Safety and Health Standards for Boxers
09.14.05 Boxing Facilities and Equipment
09.14.06 Conduct of Boxing Contests
09.14.07 Ring Officials
09.14.08 Wrestling Regulations
09.14.09 Control and Taxing of Tickets
09.14.10 Prohibited Practices
09.14.11 Hearing Regulations
09.14.12 Amateur Boxing Regulations
09.14.13 Prohibited Substances
09.14.14 Kickboxing Regulations
09.14.15 State Championships

Maryland Statutes on Athletic Contests

Md. Code, Business Regulations.

TITLE 4. ATHLETICS

Subtitle 1. Definitions.

• 4-101. Definitions.

Subtitle 2. State Athletic Commission.
• 4-201. Established.
• 4-202. Membership.
• 4-203. Chairman.
• 4-204. Quorum; meetings; compensation; surety bond; staff; office.
• 4-205. Miscellaneous powers and duties.
• 4-206. Disposition of money.
• 4-207. Authority of Secretary.
• 4-208. Termination of certain provisions.

Subtitle 3. Boxing, Kick Boxing, and Wrestling.
• 4-301. "License" defined.
• 4-302. Scope of subtitle; headgear for amateur boxing.
• 4-303. License required.
• 4-304. Qualifications of boxers and kick boxers.
• 4-304.1. Blood tests for boxers and kick boxers.
• 4-305. Applications for licenses.
• 4-306. Surety bond.
• 4-307. Issuance of license.
• 4-308. Scope of license.
• 4-309. Term of license.
• 4-310. Denials, reprimands, suspensions, and revocations - Grounds; penalties.
• 4-311. Same - Hearings.
• 4-312. Judicial review.
• 4-313. Contests authorized.
• 4-314. Neurological examination required.
• 4-315. Boxing contests.
• 4-316. Boxing, kick boxing, or wrestling in fake contests.
• 4-317. Publication of seat prices.
• 4-318. Ticket scalping.
• 4-319. Ventilation and safety of structures.
• 4-320. Allowing unlicensed person to act or participate in contest prohibited.
• 4-321. Accepting money or gifts for favors.
• 4-322. Penalties.
• 4-323. Injunctive relief.

As with all other retranscribed antique manuals that I republish, the text is available for free. You can download it at no charge. The treeware version is at “cost.”

Quote:
Born June 4, 1862, Robert Fitzsimmons began boxing first as an amateur n Australia, defeating four men in his debut. He quickly transitioned to professional, and in the late 19th Century met and defeated numerous well known champions of the day including Dempsey, Maher, Hall, Creedon, Corbett, Ruhlin, Sharkey, ‘and others of like note.’ retaining and defending the Heavy-Weight title until June 9, 1899.

In retired life, Fitzsimmons taught Boxing, Self-Defense, and Physical Fitness, then known as “Physical Culture.” In 1901, he published his Fitness and Boxing manual titled “Physical Culture and Self Defense” which included material from earlier articles he had written.

This book is a faithful transcription by Kirk Lawson of the original text. Special attention has been given to recreating the look and feel of the original document, including similar fonts, the preservation of spelling, hyphenation, and intentionally blank pages.

You can get the book at: http://www.lulu.com/content/1921948

While you’re there, check out Kirk’s other offerings:
http://stores.lulu.com/lawson

Go check it out at Mokuren Dojo where Pat was kind enough to host it this month. He did a special theme issue on “Warriors of Peace and Justice” and received a nice response.

There are many quality posts, but here are a few that caught my eye:

Patrick Parker included an older Nonviolent self defense that matched this month’s theme. I love the photo he links to, check it out!

Chris also hopped into the wayback machine to post his thoughts on Conflict Resolution: A Casualty of Non-Violent Martial Arts. Pretty amusing in that he immediately takes a shot at any art that doesn’t free spar as being “inadvertently harmless.” I found myself nodding my head in agreement at first, but then I began to think of exceptions, such as some forms of silat, combatives, etc.

Dave Shevitz posted on Jury Duty and Ki Tests, which I thought was an interesting look into the deliberation room through an aiki filter.

I found some common ground with Eric Frey this time after reading his How to Spot a Punch Coming a Mile Away post. I once had an excellent boxe-francaise instructor that I finally had to agree to disagree with because I simply refused to focus on my opponent eyes when kickboxing.

The next Carnival (#6) will be hosted by Black Belt Mama so be sure and get your submittal in by February 23. Submit your post here.

Longtime Cincinnati resident Leonard (”Len”) Lanius, born around 1865, claims he was the lightweight champion wrestler of the world at one point.

That would have been around 1890 and I have verified that he did at least referee a match in 1894. In fact, the loser of the bout gave Lanius some lip, whereupon Lanius promptly removed his coat to take care of business. Police interference prevented it from going any farther.

Once, while speaking about the Gotch-Hackenschmidt bouts, Lanius noted that “it was the invasion of the Jap wrestlers around that time that put me to work on perfecting a style of defense to check their attack. Their methods were quite baffling.” That, of course, led to his publication of American Jiu Jitsu: The New Art of Self Defense in 1922.

His career is quite varied. As a boy, he went to Cincinnati and shined shoes and and sold papers for a living, his father having died of consumption before Len was born. He took up wrestling at around 12-13 or so as a sickly lad who had been told he might not reach twenty (didn’t they all start sickly when they’re sell books?), but the wrestling cured him and he became a champ, boasting he once went seventy matches without a fall.

He traveled with the circus and on the vaudeville circuit, then later retired from wrestling and joined the sports staff at the Cincinnati Post. He also coached for several years at the Ohio Military Institute in Cincinnati. He occasionally spoke on the radio about wrestling for WLW. By 1921 Lanius had entered the field of optometry and was still going strong, visiting out of state optometric conventions in 1933. (He was president of a Cleveland optical factory in ‘33). But his early passion was chickens (so to speak).

According to census data, he was the proprietor of an optical store by January 1920 and had a wife, looks like her name was Minnie, some 9 years younger than he. He wasliving in Cincinnati, and he had a 23 year-old married son, Ralph D. Lanius, who managed his optical store.

In March of 1921 Lanius demonstrated to the members of the Rotary club his “Yankee Jiu Jitsu” at the Park Hotel. The Rotarians particularly enjoyed when he boosted his demonstration partner (Dr. Otis G. Morse) over his head. You know those crazy Rotarians.

On June 9, 1921, Lanius gave an exhibition of his version of jujutsu at the Busy Bee cafeteria during the Kiwanis club program. He was one of the principal features! This was the opening of the Christen Kenton club and there were over 100 attendees. That’s a lot of Kiwanis.

But it was during his early circus/vaudeville traveling days that a bachelor friend gave Lanius two hens and told him to fatten them up and then invite him to dinner. That was the beginning of a beautiful man-poultry partnership, and by 1917 Lanius was known all over Ohio for his poultry passions. In fact, he was the president of the Ohio branch of the American Poultry Association for three years, as well as a licensed poultry judge. The papers would even run his photograph whenever his fairground lectures were advertised.

By 1912 he owned the College Hill Poultry farm in Cincinnati and by 1917 he also owned the G.E. Conkey Co. of Cleveland. It appears that there wasn’t hardly a single fair or poultry meeting at which Lanius failed to lecture, although the 1917 lectures were mainly ominous warnings of the grave shortage of either poultry or eggs that loomed on the horizon due to the cold season causing a grain shortage. Luckily the country appeared to survive the hen/egg catastrophe. In case anyone is wondering, he sold layers, including White Leghorns, Buff Leghorns, White Wyandottes, D.C. Rhode Island Reds, and Buff Orpingtons.

All facetiousness aside, I bet the guy could spin some tales or he wouldn’t have been invited to speak at all those events. Too bad nothing really survives but his book. Speaking of which, I scanned a copy almost exactly three years ago and passed it around. I see there is now a version floating around on the web. I don’t know if it’s the one I set free, but if you do a little Googling, you should be able to find a place to download it.

Yep, that’s the one I scanned a few years ago, same signed dedication as my book. I can’t believe no one ever bothered cleaning it up, especially since I provided it in MS Word. Anyway, you can download a copy here, but be warned, I never intended for it to be released to the public in that state, I was just doing a quick scan for friends.

If you have any further information on old Len, please shoot me an email.

Some of the references used:

Charleston Daily Mail 5-23-1933
Coshocton Tribune 3-15-1921
Indianapolis Star 2-9-1912, 9-1-1917, 10-5-1918.
Lanius, Len. American Jiu Jitsu: The New Art of Self Defense (1920)
Lincoln Daily Eagle 4-26-1917
Marion Daily Star 4-5-1921, 4-5-1921, 6-9-1941
U.S. Census, Cincinnati, OH, Ward 26, Hamilton County (1-20-1920)