If newspaper stories relative to this strange and recently introduced
Japanese science are to be credited, Munchausen is henceforth the
standard Sunday school literature and the Arabian Nights prosy
historical narrative.
A squad or so of New York policemen were recently compelled to rescue a
Bowery mob from extinction at the hands of a burly young Jap, weighing
in the neighborhood of a hundred pounds, while an American, after a few
lessons, has solved the long delayed problem of the domestication of the
hind leg of a mule.
These things being true—and they are conclusively backed by
advertisements in magazines and insinuating approvals from the White
House, whose occupant in chief now never uses more than one finger on
the most strenuous opponent,—how many presumably settled social
institutions are longer secure? What, for instance, of the historic
traditions hovering around the revered institutions of mother-in-law and
cook lady? And what of the cherished monthly anticipation of the
horrific bill collector, the eleemosynary insurance agent and the
sad-faced representative of a worthy charity? Consider the epochal
iconoclasm involved in the passage of these time-honored social,
domestic and civic pests!
On the other hand, however, reflect upon the counter possibilities of
the parties enumerated becoming wise to jiu-jitsu before you!
Authorities state that the initiated can strangle a victim as readily by
a gentle pressure about the waist as by a strangle hold about the throat
and that the lower extremities may be hopelessly disarranged by a finger
gently exerted midway the spine. With casual instruction _sub rosa_, a
man’s wife might economically elect the tender and twining embrace as an
effective substitute for the divorce court, or might at pleasure convert
him into a permanent invalid while affecting to innocently scratch his
back.
That biblical narrative which has disturbed the faith of many of the
credulously reverent, wherein the ant inquires insinuatingly of the
elephant if he fully realizes the thoughtlessness of his disposition to
overcrowd or shove, in this sidelight of modern criticism, receives a
luminous and comforting ray of explanation and reassurance. The erring
faith of many honest but superficial doubters is further bolstered by
the reputed but till now little appreciated attitude of the elephant in
preferring to pass the observation as facetious.
Great is jiu-jitsu but greater still the higher criticism!