I am reading a book written by the esteemed gentleman and fencing master Col. Thomas Hoyer Monstery in the 1870:ies.
"Self defense for gentlemen and ladies".
What an awesome chap!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonel_Thomas_Hoyer_MonsteryHis most gifted student was possibly even more badass than her Master.
http://usfencinghalloffame.com/wp/hattan-ella-jaguarina/but when they once staged a joint fencing display they were judged very evenly matched by both audience and judges.
https://martialartsnewyork.org/2015/03/31/colonel-thomas-monstery-and-the-training-of-jaguarina-americas-champion-swordswoman/Now, consider this. Monstery fought several duels AND in several combat skirmishes. And had to defend himself in the street on occasions. Yet, he hated guns. He said that man who carry a gun is more likely to use it hastily.
When you fought a duel with the sword, you were much more able to stop and and show humanity, to ask if honours were satisfied etc.
But as soon as a trigger is pulled a man is turned into a murderer wether he wants it or not, as Monstery put it.
Now, Monstery did kill a few men in his career but he did not consider that as something grand. They may have wanted his life but they were still fellow men. Hence Monstery said that the art of boxing was of great value to the gentleman. It gave him an ability to defend himself and his lady without risking to become a murderer. Monsterys boxing is not like what we see today. It looks much more like what we see from modern self-defence, blocks with the lower arms and legs, jabs for keeping the opponent at bay and then straight "scientific" blows using the straight line, targetting the nose and the bridge between the eyes.
Uppercuts and curved blows was something Monstery taught his students to defend against, but not to use. You risked among other things severly injuring your hands and knuckles, which in a self-defence situation is very counter-productive.
However, Monstery argued that the gentlemans best item of self-defence was the regular walking cane. No swordcane or such things, just a sturdy normal cane.
He also taught his female students the use of boxing and trained them as hard as his male ones. He made zero difference between them.
But he also saw that women, due to fashion and the codes of society had other things to consider. They did not use canes for example, depriving them of an excellent self-defence tool.
But instead it was often fashionable to carry a parasol and Monstery developed a system for turning it into a nasty self-defence tool. He taught that hitting with it was usually pointless but drilled his students in using it as a parry tool and then via rapier fencing to learn to use it for stabbing, either stabbing the face and eyes and of course the groin.
I would not want to be the assailant leaping a New York woman in the streets finding out the hard way she had studied for the Colonel.