The inhabitants of Cornwall and Devonshire

The inhabitants of Cornwall and Devonshire

The inhabitants of Cornwall and Devonshire

The inhabitants of Cornwall and Devonshire, we are well assured, from time immemorial have been celebrated for their expertness in this pastime, and are universally said to be, in their style, the best wrestlers in the kingdom. To give a Cornish hug, used to be a proverbial expression. "The Cornish," says Fuller, "are masters of the art of wrestling, so that, if the Olympic games were now in fashion, they would come away with the victory. Their hug is a cunning close with their combatants, the fruit whereof is his fair fall or foil at the least." They learned the art at an early period of life, "for you shall hardly find," says Carew, in his Survey of Cornwall, 1602, "an assembly of boys in Devon and Cornwall, where the most untowardly amongst them, will not as readily give you a muster (or trial) of this exercise as you are prone to require it."