New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1859-10-14

absolute safety, the ChefJustice hnishes tskirg his
aim and the malefactor is . dead nan. Justice is
satisfied, treason to the Slave Democracy 10 pun
i.hed, AID the rightful supremacy Of Slavery is
established in Cslfornis.
Now. we would not be understood ~ condemuing
this iudc al proceeding the part Of CnisfJ usiice
Terry. He il q magistrate lesrned in the Law OF
Honor, ss well o. in tbst of the Land TIE sdTsn-
tsge bis oppC nents misfortune gave him was one he
had right by that Code to avail himself Of And
We DO not presime, in this distant and darkened
region TO censure the conduct Of the Chief Justice
in stepping from the Bench 10 the duelng ground,
or exchanging the tribunal Of the Common Law for
that Of ten psces We all know that in this
glorious country judges take ths liberty Of making
laws, "a " ell a. Of eXpounding them ChiefJustice
Terry merely established a lew legal principle in
chsler eipg Mr.. Brcdtricb. ard furnished 40 illus
trative precedent in going out and shooting him.
He 10 q Kentu :kisn, as We understand by birth
grated or Texas stock. before being hansplanted
to Calf rhi, and such result can, utder
sucb circumstances, be only looked upon as
az occurrence in the regular course Of ns
ture-ard, necessarily. of law John Quincy
Adams once being present where the conver.
sation turIed on the singu!arity Of the fact that
all the Sigpers Of the Declaration Of Independence
unlike revoluiiobsts in generaD had died nataral
deaths, excepting one, Walton Of Georeii who
was killed in duel observed "Aud that is natural
death for Georgian" So, az it would have been
strictly natural death for Chief-Justce Terry to
baye died in q duel, it was entirely according to
Nature .nd, Of course, TO Law to dispatch another
man by tie ,ame method.
II will, unquestionably, strike our SLOW cousins
over tie water as an odd cOmmixture OF ideas, to
conceive Of a Chief Justice going out with men,
Der Of the highest branch Of the National Legsla-
ture and shooting him on the field Of honor They
could not easily imagine Lord Campbell, for in
stance, or Sir Alexander Cockburn, calling out
Lord Derby or Lord Carlisle, and scientifically
putting bullet in his thorax. AID, even in the
older regions Of this faster country the concatens
ton of ideas is rather bard to keep gravey together
Just imagine Chief Justice Of New York, in the
DAYS when New.York had Chief Justces-say Am
brose Spencer or James Kent-callipg out and
shooting to death Rufus King or Edward Livings-
ton Or figure to yourself Chief Justice Shaw of
Massachusetts, challenging and delivering charge
of powder and lead to Charles Sumner or Henry
Wilson But we admit, tina. the old fogysms OF
these elder gOns are not to be taken as the rule
for the development Of the more progressive lati'
tudes We are far from affirming that in those
realms Of gold i. may not add to the weight Ofjudi.
cal decisions to have it known that the magistrate
making them is ready to defend them at the pistols
mouth against all corners The only irregular
thing we have noticed about the accounts of this
judicial combat is, that the Chief Justice had been
arrested. We have our doubts, from later accounts,
whether such an outrage can have been co nmitted.
Ard we only hope, if it should be strangely
on the Bench and presiding at bis own trial. 1t
strikes US that this is essential to the complete
consistency Of the whole affair.
Our relatives of the United Kingdom, however,
have not much to brsg Of in this particular over u.s.
If We have CalforLia now, they had Ireland sIty
years since, where the state of things was not very
different from what il is in our semi barbarous de-
tendencies. We believe that there was not actu.
ally any instance Of Judge being summoned, or
summoniDg another, to the field of honor but it
was an ordinary occurrence for lawyers to 70 out
the morning after trail and have crack at one
another by way Of postscript to The quarrels Of the
bar. The Provost Of Trinity College, Dublin,
went ont with Master in Chsncery about the be-
ginning Of this century, and afferward gave
piece Of advice TO young stud ent atlaw, who ap-
piled to him for counsel, such as Chief Justice
Terry him,elf might administer to any of the
ingenious legal youth Of California: Buy case Of
{" good pistols" said be- and learn to use them
"they will get you On much faster than Fearne or
Blackstone" Scott sfterwar1 Earl Of Clonmel,
when Attorney General incurred the displsa,ure Of
Lady TyrcorDel. She accused him to her lord Of
making love to her, merely for the purpose of pro-
vokipe duel, the fatal result of which in either
case would probably be equally satsfa ,tory - her.
He could not explain until after an exchange of
shots, which, being luckily without effect, enabled
him to assure his ordshp of his entire innocence of
sny breach ofthe Tenth any more then the Seventh
Commandment to him-ward. There were precisely
the same combinations there as tina. to which BrOd
eIick fell victim, for the destruction of obnoxious
polticians-to ore of which Gra!tan was nearly
sacrificed. CurraD, having been iusulted by an OK
ciseman named Clifford, declared that be would
rather do Without fighting all his life than fight
such black guard, but called on Major Hobart, the
Secretary for Ireland to turn the offender out of
Office for bis ipperineuce, or fight himself in bis
stead Hobart, demurring to this view of the re-
probabilities of his office, referred it to Lord Car
hampton (Wikes's Colonel Luitrell), who told him
Il at though there was no preced mt for SECRETARY