- Originally published on the Bartitsu.org site on Sunday, 21st January 2018
The notion of London bobbies studying the newfangled Japanese art of self-defence clearly intrigued Edwardian cartoonists. The Penny Illustrated Paper of March 4, 1905 imagined that a new police uniform inspired by “Uko-Tani” – the cartoonist meant Yukio Tani – would incorporate the white shorts that were then fashionable as jiujitsu leg-wear.