laststandonzombieisland

The most common accessory that the well-dressed gentleman in the 1850s carried was a walking cane. This simple object was a status symbol among those with taste, the equivalent of the rapier carried by nobles during the Renaissance period. You simply did not leave home without it—so what better place to hide a gun?
For the sixty or so years of the Victorian era, every gentleman with clean fingernails went about town with a walking cane. These canes were simple accessories (though they could often be quite ornate in appearance) and didn’t have a specific purpose other than as a fashion accessory, a symbol of taste, wealth and class.

However, the piece of mind that comes with traveling with a nice, sturdy stick in your hands was certainly an aspect of these early canes function/popularity as this period also saw one of the most notorious rises in street crime ever seen in the modern Western world. And with the canes marking these gentlemen as targets for ruffians as much as defending against them, you could see why it soon became fashionable to have not only a cane, but also one that held a means of protection. This led to cane swords, but these were largely outpaced by the rise of small, concealable pistols, used both by citizens as well as by the criminal elements.

Why bring a sword to a gunfight? This line of thinking led to canes that were in fact, working firearms.

Read the rest in my column at GUNS.com