The New York herald., 1870-03-15
Tho Situatisa In Euro1s-The Hsve"s'on-
ury Elements.

hood OF Madrid has lent Iresh iuteIoSt W
European politics and to European manners.
| In the whole range of history we can recall no
similar case, no case 80 completely Illustrative
| Of what we should call decentralization IN high
places. This Spanish duel, 80 fatal in its re-
suits, has furnished US with point OF de-
! parture which Is absolutely fresh.
| Time was when duelling was common in
Europe; but the growth Of healthfnl moral
sentiment--a moral sentiment created and sus-
taiued by honor and intelligence-m the
duest almost, If not entirely, a backleg.
| Thackeray, so keenly alive TO all the follies of
| the past and the present, made dueling to
English readers in his exquisite novel Of ''Es-
mond' more than ridiculous--certainly wicked
and despicable. II is now long since
British sentiment denounced it. Years, many.
years, have rolled past since Jeffrey and Tom
Moore avenged their wrongs by firing off
blank cartridge. 1t is not so long since Pal
merston laughed down in the House Of Com
mons belligerent Irishman, in the person OF
the so-called O'Donoghue, who challenged to
mortal combat tho present Sir Robert Peel.
In France and Germany duelling has been
kind of playful pastime at the larger schools
and universities. But all over Europe the
practice has long since been denounced among
men OF sense and culture as barbarous, brutal
and essentially unfair
The sentiments of intelligent Europe were
| heartily endorsed by the reading and intelli-
gent people Of the Northern States of America.
UnhappiIy violent Southern sentiment, be-
gotten of slavery, did before the late civil
war drag Northern men into folly and sin
against their better judgment. Burlingame,
now no more, man Of sense and spirit,
and the philosophic and scholarly Sumner,
will long be remembered as examples of what
we have said, although Summers case is not
| quite to the point. Since the war no gentle
! man Of the North has been so foolish as to
! yield to false sense of honor. The intelli-
| gent Anglo-Saxon sentiment that the sword
and the pistol were no fair arbiters of quar-
rel has grown and grown, and in our Northern
States, quite as much as in Great Britain, and,
indeed, among all the intelligent classes Of
Europe, duelling has been openly and very
justly denounced as genteel rowdyism.
1t has panied US sometimes to find that in
spite of facts the European public, encouraged
by the press, has persisted in making the most
and the worst of our American habits I'm
. happily, Europe can point to our barroom
squabbles. They can lay their finger on the
map, touching New York, ST. Louis, Chicago,
Cincinnati, Boston; and in connection with
each Of those places they can number mur-
ders by the score or by the hundred
| many of which touch our best society.
We cannot deny the charge. We cannot say
| that those who make it are wrong. 1t is true,
painfully true, that our American civilization is
not developing high regard for the value Of
| human life. We have little too much of the
knife and good deal too much of the pistol.
1t is, we honestly confess it, huge drawback
! to the general excellence of our American civil
ization that men are so merciess, that life is so
frequently, so cruelty, and 80 recklessly wasted.
1t is undeniable, however. that these blemishes
| do not attach to the better class of American
| citizens. They are the characteristics Of the
mob, which is more or less the same in all
lands. In free country like this they are
only slightly exaggerated. The mob in New
York and ST. Louis and Cincinnati and Chi
cago is bad; but it is not much better in
London or Paris or Brussels or Vienna or
Berlin. II Europe can despise the mob 80 can
we. II Europe can say the characteristics Of
our civilization are not to be determined by
| the vulgar outbursts of the vulgar, so can we.
| We can say more we can say that but little Of
| American sin appears in European centres,
whereas most of the sin Of our large cities is
European in it's growth and training.
AS matters now are we have no cause to be
| ashamed. Our friends on the other side have
! no cause to be proud. On the lower level of
society they have even less cause to boast
than we have. They have as much sin, and
they have great deal more poverty. In the
upper walks of life they must now begin to
| regard themselves as our interiors. We must
Of course make exceptions; but when we
think Of the Mordaunt case, which 50 closely
! touched the royal household of England; of
The Victor Noir case, which sullied the name
of the Bonapartes, and Of this Spanish duel,
which, in The estimation Of many, makes a
| royal pretender murderer, it is really hard
TO lind good reason for saying that monarchi-
| cal Europe is much better than democratic
America. At the present moment the
Towering Of European society is to be
sought in monarchical centres. If we
look for it in England or France or
| Spain we shall have no difficulty in
discovering bad examples. In the higher
ranks of American society, whatever the
cause, we have no such towering, no such
iruitage. II is this which gives us hope for
the democracy, and particularly hope for the
United States. II is this which confirms us in
the opinion that Europe is rotten at the core,
| or, il the reader prefers another figure, slum-