The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1838-09-18 00:00:00

CONTEMPORARY PRESS.

DUELLING,

( From th,e Morning Herald.) 44
It is vain to attempt the suppression of the practice
of duelling by moral essays and appeals to religious
principle so long as our statesmen and legislators sanc-
tion that absurd and barbarous practice by their ex-
ample. The law declares all deliberate fighting which
ends in homicide to be murder, but the law-makers
practic dly recommend by their conduct that which the
law denounces, and while the statute-book puts the
stamp of felony upon the bloody act of the successful
duellist, and hands his persbn over to the public exe-
cutioner as a nuisance, only tit to he strangled in the
ey,s of the people, the statute maker takes the instru-
ment of murder in his hand, points it at the breast of
a fellow-creature for some paltry provocation, and co-
vers himself with a felon's ignominy to vindicate his

He [nay

honour.
What can the moralist do in such a case e
expound the Divine law, and ably and eloquent
peal to its denunciations of Divine displeasure against
those who deliberately shed the biot' of man "made
in the Divine image," but the law of f.shion has su-
perseded the law of Christianity. He may argue
upon merely moral grounds the folly and atrocity of
the practice, but a tyrant custom tramples on ail moral
considerations. He may, as the last resort, open the
volume of the municipal law, and read the dreadful
penalties of disgrace and death therein annexed to
this species of homicide. He is answered by the ex-
ample of the law. maker, who hesitates not to patro-
nise the murderous practice, and to violate in his own
person the law under which he has set up the gallows
for the abatement of the nuisance
Writers have variously accounted for the origin of
duelling—some referring it to the judicial combat
called ordeal of battle—the custom of an ignorant and
superstitious age ; others to the tournaments and jousts
of the days of chivalry, which, begun in sport, often
led to real and fatal personal collisions. Others, again,
will have it that the duello is of eastern origin, and
not known in Europe before the time of the crusades.
In a dissertation upon the propriety of the practice its
origin is of little moment. It is sufficient to know
that all accounts of its original introduction among
the habits of European society agree in this, that it
had its commencement to ttmes cornparatiaety narna-
rous, when force had more to do with the decision of
right and the redress of wrongs titan reason and law.
A morning contemporary offers a sort of defence for
it by saying that " it appears to be an unfortunate ne-
cessity of civilisation." If it were a necessity of ci
wilisation it would be universally found to prevail
wherever civilisation flourished. Yet it is a fact that
the most civilised nations of the classic ages knew no-
thing of it. The nations whose literature has carried
refinement of taste, elegance of invention, exactness
of reasoning, the force of eloquence, and the fascina-
tion of poetry to that perfection which has made their
works models of excellence to all succeeding ages,
knew nothing of that " necessity of civilisation" which
consists in the modern absurdity of '6 gentlemanly sa-
tisfaction." That people who triumphed over slavery
and barbarism at Marathon and Salamis—that other
greater people who carried their arms and the arts of
civilisation from the centre of Italy to the utmost-li-
mits of the known world, knew nothing of the honour-
able practice which has stained with the noble and
ignoble blood of senators and sharpers, lords and li•
nendrapers, military chiefs and man-milliners, the vic-
tims of gambling house squabbles and tavern warfare,
the green turf of Wimbledon Common or Chalk Farm.
It was not in such stupid and barbarous broils the
courage of Greece or Rome signalised itself. The-
mistocles exclaimed to his exasperated opponent,
"Strike me, but hear me;" and his countrymen re-
corded, for the admiration of all posterity, the sublime
forbearance of one of their greatest statesmen and
bravest warriors. The Romans conquered the world,
but their courage was not nurtured by the practice of
duelling. They knew nothing of premeditated mor-
tal combats for either the " point of honour" or per-
sonal revenge. Not in the strife of honourable " as-
sassination" was the lofty, the high-minded courage
trained for the defence and glory of a country in whose
cause

" The self-devoted Deeii died,
The Fabii fell, and the great Scipios conquered."

- -
It is not a great while since we felt it our duty to
express our unmitigated disgust at a duel which sig-
nalised the " chivalry" of a British nobleman and the ,
husband of an opera singer. The Standard preceded
us in that disagreeable task, and brought upon itself a
flood of scurrilous abuse through the columns of most
of its London contemporaries, which made us blush
for the character of the British press. .Had the mur-
derer of the unfortunate dealer in fleecy hosiery and
hair-triggers, at Wimbledon, been a " singing man,"
or the husband of a " singing lady"—we will not for
the world say " woman"—public sympathy would be
exhausted upon him. The chivalry of the feat would
quite overshadow the bloody nature of the crime, and .
any journal that was bold enough to brand with honest
indignation the " accomplished" culprit, would 'be
handed over by some of our high-minded and liberal
contemporaries to the abuse and execration of name-
less correspondents, pouring on its devoted head the
collected wrath of opera green-rooms and musical sa-
loons. But as it appears the principal is not a singer,
or the husband of a singer, but one of Evans's merce-
naries, whose aunt is said to keep the Crown Inn at '
Taunton, it is possible that he may be-left to his fate
without "Fops'-alley" and Grub street rising in arms,
whenever he appears to take his trial at the Old
Bailey.
But the foolish and barbarous practice of duelling is
not to be put down by the empty threat or even. the
actual enforcement of capital punishment. The hang-
ing of Major Campbell for killing his brother officer
Boyd in a duel had no effect in repressing the offence. ,
It is absurd to enact the penalty of death to put down
a custom which consists in braving death to escape the
imputation of fearing to die. Cowardice in regard
of the opinion of the world is the great stimilus to
duelling on the part of those who are not Trained and
professed "assassins" in that line. We use the word
"assassin" advisedly. Professed duellists are gene-
rally rank cowards, who rely upon their practice with
the pistol against persons not accustomed to the use of
. the weapon, and who have never qualified themselves
at shooting galleries and such places for a trade in
blood, as such "civilised" ruffians do. Professed
duellists acquire a sort of sleight of hand in the use of
the weapon, which enables them to take advantage of
unpractised persons, more especially when "hair
triggers" are employed; and what is that but cold-
blooded, deliberate assassination ?
Though the pain of death cannot put down duel-
ling, a life of disgrace and hard labour inflicted upon
the "murderer" in this line would go far to produce
that desirable effect. We have no objection to some
examples being made in that way, which would con-
sign the gentlemanly homicide, whether he was a mi-
litary " scamp" or a " civil" bully, who relied upon
his practice with " hair triggers" to a life of hard la-
bour in a chained gang in a penal settlement. The
duelling hero's fashionable glory would no longeeshed
a dangerous attraction when associated with the con-
vict's drudgery and the felon's doom.
With regard to the practice of duelling among pub-
lic men, which chiefly grows out of political conflicts,
a law which would render any man ineligible to apub-
lic office who engaged, either as principal or second, in
a duel, would, if rigorously and impartially executed,
probably put an end to it altogether. But the diffi-
culty is to get those who make the law to enact a law
against themselves. As to a vet diet of murder against
a duellist, such a thing is never known now-a days,
except by a coroner's jury, which, of course, has only
the effect of a bill of indictment, to put the accused
party on his trial for the murder' when a sort of solemn
farce is generally performed, ending in the sympathies
of the audience being lavished on the culprit in the
dock, who, having been satisfactorily proved to have
murdered a fellow-creature, with the usual forms of
honoui able assassination, receives a verdict of " ho-
nourable acquittal"—bows to the judge, who looks
upon a vulgar murderer, perhaps, with a different eye
—and walks home to put his whiskers and hiS• hair
triggers in repair for future operations. Let the
empty terror of a conviction for murder be taken
away. Let the sentence of the blood stained duellist
be that of aggravated manslaughter, with its degraded
doom 4f transportation for life to a penal settlement,
and duelling will he no longer a fashionable vocation.

BoutooNx.—THE LATr. DuEl..—(Frvm a Correspondent.)
—Mr. Eliot, one of the principals in the late fatal duel at
Wimbledon Common, has been residing at one of the prin-
cipal hotels in Boulogne fur the last fortnight, and is on very
good terms with Young Dutch Saul, the pviist, who has
been staving there ever since a verdict of mariTlaughter was
returnedagainst him by a coroner's Jury, for assistitig in the
killing of -Brighton Bill, in a prize fight. Both Eliot and
Young Dutch Sam intend to remain at Boulogne until the
affairs in which they were engaged are entirely blown over.
Young Dutch Sam is supporied by the fancy, and dresses
well; but since his stay at Boulogne he has been remarkable
for his steady habits and general good behaviour. Wecan-
not, however, say so much of Mr. Eliot and his associates,
some of whom were engaged in the duel. They make no
secret of the business in which they were concerned, and
have been boasting of the part they acted. On Friday
evening last Eliot favoured the people of Boulogne with a
specimen of his pugilistic powers, by encountering three or
four Frenchmen near the 'Bath establishment, who he con-
ceived had insulted him. In the vulgar slang of the ring, he
pitched into the Frenchmen, who, however, were getting the
hest of the affray, when an English coachman interfered in
his behalf, and fur so doing was very speedily taken by the
gendarmes from the box of his carriage, and conveyed to
the guard-house for the night, leaving the horses to co where
they pleased with the empty carriage. The coachman was
taken before the proper tribunal on Saturday morning, and
was allowed to depart after receiving an intimation that he
would receive a summons when further proceedings were
takow. Tha policy
does not leave the place. Eliot continued to elude the vigi-
lance of the gendarmerie. Boulogne is really considered
quite an asylum for those who dread the terrors of the law in
Englatrd, and, no doubt, will in future be deemed a safe one,
after the conduct pursued by the authorities in the case of
Myers, whom they refused to deliver lip to an English police
officer, although charged, on the verdict of a coroner's jury,
since confirmed by the grand jury, ui wilful murder. It is
well understood at Boulogne that any application on the part
of those who may come armed with the coroner's warrant for
Eliot's apprehension will be of no avail. 'ln Young Dutch
Sam's case no attempt has ever been made to take him into
'custody, although some of his companions have beei found
guilty of manslaughter. Since writing the above we hear
that the English coachman has received a summons to appear
before a tribunal on Friday next. He nevergot off his box,
but it is feared be will be fined and imprisoned; so much
for French police and French law .--Morning Chronicle.