- Originally published on the Bartitsu.org site on Saturday, 20th October 2018
Actress Doris Lytton puts up her dukes as Maude Bray, a supporting character in the 1917 theatrical farce Wanted: a Husband. Hilarity ensues when one of Maude’s friends advertises for a husband to spark some ideas for her new novel.
Maude – a “strenuous woman” who is well-trained in boxing and jiujitsu – volunteers her services as a “chucker-out” (Edwardian-vintage slang for a bouncer). At one point in the play she deals handily with a “colonial” would-be suitor who is making a pest of himself:
This was not the first time that the Japanese art of unarmed combat had been associated with “chuckers-out”. Some reviewers of E.W. Barton-Wright’s early jiujitsu displays commented that they could conceive of no other lawful use of the art, much to Barton-Wright’s indignation.