Although the figures in the preceding illustrations are shown without
masks or pads, no practice ought ever to be made without them. The
following is the dress usually worn.
A flannel shirt and trousers, shoes with soles of buff leather, without
heels.
A stout leather jacket, arm guard, leather apron, leg guard on right
leg, and a pair of shoulder pads, shaped like a milkman’s yoke.
A strong helmet covered with leather on the top, with large ear guards,
and the mask of strong wire with the meshes sufficiently small to
prevent the point of the sabre passing through. A leather stock should
also be worn round the neck.
When practising with sticks, the shoulder pad and arm guard may be
dispensed with, and the hand ought to be protected with a buffalo hide
hand guard.
Basket hilts are dangerous, as the point of the stick is apt to pass
through them, and your hand may thereby be seriously injured.