Page:Athletics and Manly Sport (1890).djvu/64

Rh in boxing, wrestling and the use of weapons. Every young man ought to be drilled. Every householder ought, at least, to have a right to own a rifle, and should know how to make cartridges. Then the moral forces will cement the popular self-respect and independence into a solid wall of civilization.

Nothing could better illustrate the helplessness of a people taken by surprise by a small, well-organized, and usurping class, than the invasion and conquest of England by the Normans. These foreign land robbers seized the surface of the country, which they hold to this day. They took possession of fields and farmers together, built their frowning towers on the hills and passes, organized and exercised their own forces, and set about a complete and permanent disorganization and disarmament of the English masses.

Their first step in this direction was the abolition of warlike exercises, games, and customs. The basis of English liberty was the ancient system of wapentake, which was equivalent to the town meeting of New England. (Were this the place to consider it, the similarity of these two truly English systems of home rule might be interestingly treated ) Under the system of wapentake, every community in Saxon England selected its own local government, and knew no