Of late years many foreign-born wrestlers have appeared in London; and those who have made a special study of the sister-art to boxing have been able to see how the characteristic methods of this or that national style may be adapted to the catch-as-catch-can system, which is the most inclusive of all, and so might almost be defined as a kind of common multiple thereof.
Of all the invasions of foreign wrestlers none has been so interesting as the appearance of the official practitioners of Sumo at the Japanese-British Exhibition. Hitherto the merits of the ancient Japanese mystery of wrestling – a term – could only be indirectly appraised from what has been seen of a number of Japanese wrestlers, small men for the most part, in catch-as-catch-can work. In that utterly un-Japanese style they have proved themselves amazingly clever in upstanding manoeuvres, especially tripping; and much heavier opponents would make haste to get down to the mat lest they should be felled so swiftly and forcibly as to be caught immediately afterwards at a disadvantage. Now that Sumo with its 48 chief devices (each with eight variations) and countless minor stratagems can be studied, it is easy to understand the origin of that uncanny dexterity in the first stage of a catch-as-catch-can bout.
    The forty Japanese wrestlers at the White City are regarded in their country as members of an honourable guild and they have all been educated to their vocation from earliest childhood. Usually two boy wrestlers are educated together, so that the training partner is never absent. In other that the legs may increase in length they are often not allowed to sit tailor-wise, after the fashion of Orientals, but are compelled to use benches; and their dietary includes more flesh than is usual with the Japanese (who can march and fight all day on a handful of rice) so that they may gain weight. The result is that these wrestlers are much above the racial average in weight and stature, through none of them are very big men according to Western ideas. But they have the compact all-round Japanese physique, and are all a stone or more heavier that one would think when mentally weighing them by the light of Western ring-side experience. In point of fact, they are wrought of living bronze, having the tremendous strength and stamina which come of the avoidance of over-eating and over-drinking (errors avoided in the Occident only by the Latin races, who are just beginning to show their latent capacity for athletics of all kinds) and also extraordinary pace and agility.
    The best of these wrestlers are consocii, so to speak, of the Ekoin Temple, near Tokio, which was built as the memorial of the victims of a vast conflagration – victims so numerous that the translation of each individual could not be celebrated with the customary rights of Buddhism. There was no endowment for their funeral fane, and wrestling contests were instituted to provide for the maintenance of the priests and the upkeep of the fabric. It follows that the members of the Ekoin athletic wrestle for the glory of Guatama, and that each bout (even one at the White City) is a kind of prayer for the progress of men (that have been dead for centuries) in the upward path towards Nirvana, the motionless point in space and time about which whirls the wheel of the life of this and all other worlds. Each bout is none the less a prayer because it brightens the lives of great crowds of spectators with a thrill of excitement. (Here it occurs to me that some of our great professional football teams began as Church clubs. But the touch of sanctity has long since vanished, and also, it is to be feared, some of the savour of sportsmanship).
    The Japanese are too practical to neglect traditional observances that sanctify commonplaces of living, and the art of Sumo is still displayed with significant pomp and symbolic circumstance. The wrestling dais with its four pillars and canopy is a temple itself; by the northern and southern pillars sit grave, silent functionaries in dusky robes who, I do not doubt, are the representatives of a priesthood pledged to poverty. On the top of the dais, which is built up of straw bundles and about 3 ft. high, is the ring, outlined by a little ridge of plaited straw and strewn with fine sand. There are two companies of factions of wrestlers (as with the gladiators of the Roman arena), and these enter at the eastern or western pillar according as their triumphs are dedicate to the rising or setting sun. When East thus meets West no “liggin down” bout, no mere exhibition of prearranged stratagems, need be feared; the rivalry of these factions from the two world's end causes the struggle to be fought out in down-right deadly earnest. On the pillars hang small receptacles for salt, which has an immemorial sanctity in Japan, being of the very stuff of wholesome holiness. Every wrestler takes a pinch and casts it in a little cloud among the dust of the ring, before a bout begins. This act has a nearer and further significance. It is done to show that there shall be no corruption of ill-feeling between the two rivals; more remotely, but not less immediately, it is a sacrificial act of meanings within meanings. The referee, who wears radiant robes of office and poses picturesquely as the men take up their positions in the ring, after loosening the muscles of their legs by lifting them sideways and planting their feet solidly, bears a fan on which is written a legend wishing “peace to all the world” – but, be it understood, the peace which comes by fighting one's way lustily through all the spheres of being. The older referee at the White City, a grey, grim veteran, is a poetic and memorable figure; but he is no figure-head, fine but fantastical. When the bout begins he is as watchful and efficient as, say, Mr. Corri or Mr. Tom Scott by the ring-side in another place. The stately introduction of the Eastern and Western wrestlers is another picturesque part of the complete ceremonial. They march on attired in gleaming embroidered aprons, the prizes of prowess, and stand statuesquely about the sand-strewn circle and justify their presence in large traditional gestures. Then the Champion of Champions has an introduction of himself. He has a rope knotted about his waist as a symbol of the Divine gift of unsurpassed strength, and an attendant bears the curved sword, which argues his nobility and the noble nature of his vocation.
    To come to the game, victory in a bout of Sumo (which must not be confounded with jiu-jitsu, the art of self-defence against the right of might) goes to the wrestler who causes his opponent to touch the ground with any part of his body other than his feet, or forces him outside the ring, or throws him off the dais, himself remaining on it. But one man must throw the other clear of himself if a point is to be scored; if the two fall together, it is no fall. The end may be achieved in any way except – unless the game has been redefined to suit English tastes – by hitting him with a clenched fist or collaring him by the hair, which is worn long, and dressed in the style seen in ancient Japanese pictures. The bout can begin only by mutual consent; but not much time is wasted in attempts to secure an advantage at the outset. At starting the wrestlers assume an all-fours attitude which does not materially differ from that of the modern sprinter waiting for the pistol shot. As a rule the men spring at one another with hands trust out, each endeavouring to push the other over, and there is a fusillade of lusty smacks. Sometimes they butt one another like a pair of rams. The high-speed manoeuvring for a hold is difficult to follow; when it is obtained – either by grasping the waist-band, or a handful of muscle after the fashion of the Homeric heroes, or putting a lock on an arm – the man who has the worst of it plants his legs wide apart and grips the ground with his prehensile feet.
    In the actual wrestling they make use of nearly all the devices known to out North-country and West-country wrestlers. The “heave” and the “flying mare,” as seen in Devon and Cornwall, are favourite stratagems, and brilliant examples of the “buttock” and “cross buttock” and “chest stroke” please those who are acquainted with the methods of Cumberland Westmorland. And they are as skilful in turning an arm-hold to account as Hackenschmidt or another. Owing to the form of stance assumed by a wrestler in difficulties not much use can be made of the legs; and the fact hat “hamming” (a weak move in North-country wrestling) is employed when an opportunity offers for effective leg-play makes for the belief that out North-country champions could teach them something worth learning. All leg-strokes should, of course, be put in as low down as possible, since the force of leverage is thereby increased. Probably the “hipe,” which is the long-legged wrestler's best move, but fraught with great danger to the short-legged man who tries it, would prove effective against these visitors who are all rather short and shank. The Oriental leg is very strong and supple, and is used like an arm in many intricate manoeuvres. But its shortness of reach is a distinct disadvantage.
    In conclusion, it must be said that the agility of the practitioners of Sumo is amazing. A wrestler may throw his opponent over his head, but as often as not the man who is buttocked and thrown clear falls on his feet in the ring, and is sometimes able to gain a waist-hold from behind and so beat the other man in the end. These people do not wrestle in kid gloves Throttling or kicking in the wind are allowed under the rules, but they seem able to stand the hardest knocks, and the man who is thrown high of the dais bounces up like a ball with a smile on his face. Now and again a wrestler who has been bowled over before he was ready to begin (the start must be made by mutual consent) resents the other's haste, and hands him a cuff or kick behind. But there is no real ill-feeling, and no questioning of the referee's decision. The general assault, in which the first wrestler to win five bouts in succession gains victory, is always an exhilarating affair. He is not allowed a moment's respite, the salt throwing and other preliminaries being cut out. It would be interesting to see how a good all-round English wrestler, with some knowledge of boxing, would fare against these strenuous athletes. It is quite possible that a long-legged, hard, agile Northerner (one of the “lean rickle o’ dones” class) would give their champion a fair amount of healthy exercise.