“A new and improved ‘battel’”

In his intriguing article “The Passing of the Duel” (Chambers’s Magazine, 1906), Alfred Fellows speculated about the invention of a new and more civilised form of duelling, especially designed for English gentlemen. If properly overseen by a “Court of Honour”, he argued, this would be a more manly and visceral form of redress than was allowed under the law in 1906.

(…) a duel with deadly weapons would be out of the question as a proper solution; and the aim being to punish the offender, such a thing as a fight with fists would be almost as undesirable, for as often as not the injured party would be thrashed. A possible solution would be to order the offender to be trounced up and flogged by the other, or otherwise arrange matters so that no harm could befall the innocent person ; but apart from the fact that the guilty would never voluntarily submit to a tribunal which could only punish him, most gentlemen would feel that to hit a helpless man in cold blood was worse than receiving money from him as a solace for dishonour.

The problem is to find something which could be recognised as satisfactory by gentlemen, could take place in a school of arms or similarly suitable place, would not endanger life, would be capable of adjustment according to the righteousness of the respective causes, and perhaps having regard to size and reach (skill ought not to be so discounted), and would yet be an ordeal to both parties: the facing of sharp, physical pain, and the necessity of ignoring it. If it may be permitted to let imagination run riot for a minute, and to take unwarrantable liberties, a committee might be selected to consider the matter, and the services of Professor Sandow, Captain Alfred Hutton, Mr Eustace Miles, Mr Fry, and a professional boxer be commandeered, with some capable doctor to assist them. Perhaps, also, some professor of jiu jitsu would be useful, and these distinguished persons could then safely be left to devise a new and improved “battel”.

Although E.W. Barton-Wright may never have imagined Bartitsu as a revival of the code duello, he would have appreciated the irony of Fellows’ imagining a “new and improved ‘battel’” for gentlemen combining boxing, fencing, physical culture and jiujitsu just four years after the closure of the Bartitsu Club.