Simone Vannini eBooks

Cricket. E-book. Formato Mobipocket Horace G. Hutchinson   -  Simone Vannini, 2015  - 

Cricket began when first a man-monkey, instead of catching a cocoanut thrown him playfully by a fellow-anthropoid, hit it away from him with a stick which he chanced to be holding in his hand. But the date of this occurrence is not easy to ascertain, and therefore it is impossible to fix the date of the invention of cricket. For cricket has passed through so many stages of evolution before arriving at the phase in which we find it today that it is difficult to say when the name, as we understand its meaning, first became rightly applicable to it. The first use of the name “cricket” for any game is indeed a matter entirely of conjecture. It is not known precisely by Skeat, nor Strutt, nor Mr. Andrew Lang. But whether the name was applied by reason of the cricket or crooked stick, which was the early form of the bat, or whether from the cross stick used as a primitive bail, or from the cricket or stool, at which the bowler aimed the ball, really does not very much matter, for all these etymological vanities belong rather to the mythological age of cricket than the historical.

Hunting with the bow & arrow. E-book. Formato Mobipocket Saxton T. Pope   -  Simone Vannini, 2015  - 

The glory and romance of archery culminated in England before the discovery of America. There, no doubt, the bow was used to its greatest perfection, and it decided the fate of nations. The crossbow and the matchlock had supplanted the longbow when Columbus sailed for the New World.It was, therefore, a distinct surprise to the first explorers of America that the natives used the bow and arrow so effectively. In fact, the sword and the horse, combined with the white man's superlative self-assurance, won the contest over the aborigines more than the primitive blunderbuss of the times. The bow and arrow was still more deadly than the gun.With the gradual extermination of the American Indian, the westward march of civilization, and the improvement in firearms, this contest became more and more unequal, and the bow disappeared from the land. The last primitive Indian archer was discovered in California in the year 1911.

Broad sword and single stick. E-book. Formato Mobipocket Headley   -  Simone Vannini, 2015  - 

The favour with which my little brochure on boxing has been received induces me to put together a few ideas on the subject of attack and defence with weapons other than those with which nature has endowed us.A glance at the table of contents will suffice to show that the scope of the work has been somewhat extended, and that, though there is of course a vast deal more to be said on the wide subject of self-defence, an attempt has been made to give practical hints as to what may be effected by a proper and prompt use of those common accessories which we may find in our hands at almost any hour in the day.