Ladies with Foils

The sabre and the epee are warlike weapons, too unwieldy for women to handle. The lady fencers who attacked each other last week on the strips of the New York Fencers Club did it with light foils, buttoned at the tip. Last year's champion, Dorothy Locke of the Salle d'Armes Vince, lost her bout in the semi-final strip against Amy von Hansa, a blonde from the German-American Athletic Club, but both of them qualified, with Marion Lloyd and Mrs. Norman Taylor Jr., for the final round-robin.

Marion Lloyd, Miss Locke's clubmate who won the title in 1928 and 1931, fences with classic style and admirable poise, but flashing speed has lately enabled Miss Locke to beat her. She did it last week not quite so easily as the score suggested, 5-1, then came up against Miss von Hansa for the second time. It was a terrific bout. Finally at 4-all Miss Locke, attacking steadily, reached a climax of speed which her adversary could not parry, got home the winning hit. That settled the championship for another year, because all three of the finalists beat Mrs. Taylor.

Miss Lloyd and Miss von Hansa had another lively set-to for second place, which went to Miss Lloyd, 5-4 again, after more than five minutes of brilliant fencing to decide the last point.

Dorothy Brown Locke took up fencing five years ago when she was 16 because her father, a Manhattan mathematics teacher, disapproved of her posture. Joseph Vince, to whose Salle d'Armes Mr. Locke sent her, saw very little promise in Dorothy; her knees wobbled, she had poor coordination. She practiced three hours at a time, three times a week, became a close friend of Marion Lloyd who, another Vince pupil, has the soundest technic among U. S. woman fencers. Dark-haired, calm, utterly unromantic, Fencer Locke trains on as much chow-mein as she can eat, never loses her temper in a bout. In her autograph collection she prizes most highly the signature of Helene Mayer, the German Army officer's daughter who won the Olympic fencing in 1928, is now studying in California.

By winning her second championship in a row last week, Dorothy Locke enhanced her chance of equalling the record of Adeline Gehrig, cousin of famed Baseballer Lou Gehrig and only woman to win the U. S. title four times running (1920-1923). To do so Dorothy Locke will have to ward off the challenge of stubby Muriel Guggolz, another Salle d'Armes Vince student and teammate with Locke and Lloyd on last year's U. S. Olympic team. A studious and prudent, albeit preternaturally sly, lady with a foil, little Miss Guggolz was not fencing for the championship last week; she was unexpectedly eliminated in the trials last fortnight.

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