The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1843-07-18 00:00:00

DUELLING

In our last we acquainted our readers with one of those
desperate and unhappy offences which have so long con-
stituted the disgrace of law and the curse of society. A
man in the prime of life, for Colonel Fawcett was but 35
a gallant soldier, for he had just received an honour for
his gallantry in the Chinese campaigns—and a husband—.
has been put to death by his own relative. We are per-
fectly aware that this homicide has been committed in a
duel, according to the rules made by the clubs, military
messes, and such other high legal authorities, and that
though the law of the land condemns such acts as murder,
yet as fashion says they are useful, very gentlemanlike,
and even very necessary things, the law will not find itself
able to do anything in the matter; and the person who
killed the deceased will go about his proper business as
usual, unless, indeed, some similar invitation be given to
himself to go out and be killed. In the meantime a
goodly formality is gone through, every atom of which
might as well be spared, for it will be wholly ineffectual.
Everybody on and off the jury knows that Colonel Fawcett
was shot dead at five o'clock in the morning, after having
gone to the Hampstead road to shoot at, or be shot by,
another person; that he was killed on the spot; and that
there is no doubt whatever that his, miserable end, the
extinction of all his hopes, uses, and services in this
world, the widowing of his wife, and perhaps the bitter
sorrows of a mother and sisters, were all inflicted in the
space of five minutes after he alighted from his cabriolet,
by the hand of the gentleman who, also being allied to
him, came out for the purpose thus quickly and com,oletely
accomplished.
Yet, if his antagonist on this unhappy occasion had
shot Colonel Fawcett in his back, or at night, or in a wood,
or in a private room and alone, the case would be declared
murder, and the murderer would be hanged. Yet, what
is the difference in the result ? None that we can possibly
discover. The gallant soldier is as much lost to life as if
he had been stabbed by an assassin ; the only palliative (I)
being, that he was killed with two gentlemen looking on
and a surgeon in, attendance; that he was killed in the face
of day, and with a pistol in his hand, by which he might
at the same time have killed the husband of his wife's
sister ; two individuals being thus destroyed instead of
one, and two sisters made widows at the same time.
But why was this act of blood committed? Nobody
knows. What has it remedied ? Nobody can tell. There
has been some rumour of some words between the an-
tagonists on some money transaction. Has a bullet the
faculty of clearing up the account ? has it made the
wronging party the right ? has it cleared the character of
any one? Not in the least. It bas only showed that one
of the parties could kill the other; and for this purpose
a soul is sent naked before God, in the very act of defying
his commands. Why should such things be in any country
Why should they be tolerated for a moment in
v,4cse prou,.l.t'A bof.ist is that it I,rod- ••

county

Scriptures
ntip its purity? If paganism was never guilty
of this atrock'us stain—if the bravest people of the ancient
world, the romb: i 9 Greek and the daring Roman, never
dreamed of it, a, tither a stimulant or a sign of nationa'
courage—if it originated only. in that dark and blood}
superstition which,
ma,-.ing: religion the sanction
its of every
vice, insulted the jiIStICES or heaven, by annexing
judg-
ment
to the chances of the 5A;n rd, until the monk and the
hired champion settled the price of life together, and the
trade of the assassin grew out or tht, abominations of both
—is it not time for Christian Englant: to raise her voice
against this direct insult to all justice an all humanity ?
Why does not the church come forward to 4enounce the
crime ? Where are our bishops? Why do they not com-
mand their clergy to preach against it? Where a:e the
gatherers of public meetings on a hundred purposes not
a hundreth part so important? Where is the association
of which we have heard so much? And why are not the
authorities of the church called upon to protest in the
most solemn and decisive manner against a custom which
is a crying evil in the sight of God and mar,? Why, we
ask, are not our bishops forward in the extinction of this
sport of blood and misery ?—Britannia.