- Originally published on the Bartitsu.org site on Monday, 30th May 2011
An interesting snippet from a review of one of E.W. Barton-Wright’s Bartitsu exhibitions at London’s Tivoli Theatre during August 1901.
After a jiujitsu demonstration …
… Mr Barton-Wright, to whose initiative the present interesting exhibition in town is due, shows by his pupils the value of the ordinary walking-stick as a means of self defence against the man who attacks with any weapon other than a firearm. The ordinary Malacca cane, quite unused to responsibilities of any sort, becomes suddenly endowed with a most valuable gift, and in the grip of a well-trained man, saves his head and hands from a weapon of tenfold weight. It is not too much to say that no man can afford to neglect such a simple precaution against sudden attack …
– The Music Hall and Theatre Review, 23 August, 1901
This is an extremely rare, if not unique, account of Edward Barton-Wright – rather than Pierre Vigny – demonstrating walking stick self-defence during the Bartitsu Club era.