The Bartitsu Society continues to unearth some long-forgotten lore regarding the introduction of the Japanese martial arts to Europe in the early 1900s.
One item of note is the debate that raged in newspaper columns and in the pages of popular magazines such as "Health and Strength" regarding the relative merits of Jiujitsu and the established "manly British art" of boxing. While there seems to have been a general agreement that jiujitsu offered a nice range of tricks that would supplement the boxer's arsenal in actual self defence, the question of whether a jiujitsuka would beat a boxer in a regulated contest provoked strong disagreement from various quarters.
In 1903, by which time the debate seems to have been well-established, W.H. Hall wrote:
"Hitherto there has been some doubt expressed as to the result of a
boxing v jujitsu (sic) contest. It seems that quite a number of people
labour under the erroneous idea that jujitsu is more effective than
boxing as a means of self defence. This notion however, is quite
unfounded, as there has never been an instance on record where jujitsu
has gained a victory. In fact, it is very doubtful if such a contest
ever took place anywhere outside the Japanese Empire. And perhaps
readers may be surprised to hear that dozens of these contests
annually take place. Though they do not happen to be specially
arranged matches, they serve as a very fair criterion to assay the
result of similar contests between more dexterous opponents of each
respective science.
"The contests to which I refer usually take place in the streets of
Hakodate (the rendezvous port of the cosmopolitan ailing fleet),
consequently many fights take place between the sailors who meet on
shore, and who comprise the boxing fraternity; while the Japanese
police represent the jujitsu exponents. Needless to say, it is the
duty of the police to stop these unseemly fracas, which block the
public streets, and in this way the difference of opinion arises as to
the right of interference, which in its turn generally results in a melee.
"Before showing the result of an encounter between police, sailor or
sailors, as the case may be, I should like to point out that the whole
police force are instructed in fencing and jujitsu by some of the most
competent instructors in the island. But where the sailors learn their
boxing is a mystery, and I very much doubt if they have anything like
the instructional advantages of their op-ponents. "On one occasion,
after two American sailors had finished fighting, a policeman
requested the victor (who had left his antagonist in a very bad state)
to accompany him to the station. Of course the Yankee `guessed' he was
`not going that way', whereupon the police-man tried to arrest him.
After giving the plucky little Jap a couple of hard blows, which made
him leave go, he turned and would have gone away, but again the
policeman attempted to close with the Yankee, which only ended in the
policeman being knocked down. By this time assistance was at hand,
three policemen hurried up and made a combined attack upon the
resolute seaman. Even then it was not without the greatest difficulty
that the three (the first had been rendered hors de combat) escorted
him to the station. This is only one of many similar cases. With one
exception, I have never seen an arrest effected by less than two
policemen to one sailor.
"After witnessing a few similar scenes, what conclusion is one forced
to arrive at, other than that no jujitsu professor could stand against
Jim Jeffries, Tom Sharkey, or any other hard-hitting boxer who took
care not to allow any close grappling?"
Yukio Tani, William Garrud and police Sergeant G.H. Wheeldon all entered the fray, and their public correspondence reads like an Edwardian version of many "style vs. style" message board arguments. Ultimately, Sergeant Wheeldon, who had argued against jiujitsu, seems to have converted to the Japanese art, while William Garrud went on to develop a series of jiujitsu defences against boxing punches, duly featured in his book "the Complete Jujitsuan". Many years later, E.W. Barton-Wright reported that he had tried to coach Tani in boxing as well, but that the jiujitsuka had "little aptitude for the sport".
As far as I know, although Tani and fellow Bartitsu Club instructor Sadakazu "Raku" Uyenishi proved their art against numerous challengers in the professional wrestling arena, they never actually went to conclusions against a boxer. The closest thing to a jiujitsu vs. boxing event in Europe during the first decades of the 1900s appears to have been the famous and heavily-hyped match between wrestler-turned-jiujitsuka Ernest Regnier, who fought under the Japanized nom du guerre of "Re-Nie", and savateur George Dubois.
This match took place in Paris in 1905 and seems to have been treated almost as a formal affair of honour by both parties. It attracted huge interest from the press and public, but was over almost before it began. Dubois attacked first with a low kick, Regnier evaded and closed, they went to the ground, and Dubois was caught in an extended armlock that forced his surrender. Subsequently, Regnier found himself at the centre of a brief but intense jiujitsu craze which lasted until he over-estamated his own ability and was comprehensively defeated by Ivan Podoubny, a huge Russian wrestler who specialized in the Greco-Roman style.
I would be very interested to hear any other stories of encounters between jiujitsuka and boxers or savateurs that took place during the early 1900s.