The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1873-01-09
Mark Twain on Duelling.

Mark Twain ON Duelling.
Apropos of duelling and duels, which are be-
coming too prevalent in this section, Mark
Twain contributes the following In the interest
of humanity: =,
The only merit that can claim for the fol-
lowing narrative is, that it is a true story. 1t
has moral at the end of it, but claim moth
ing on that, as it is merely thrown IN to curry
favor with the religious element.
80 After had reported couple OF years on the
Virginia City (Nevada) Daily Enterprise, they
promoted me to the editor-in-chief-and L
lasted Just s! week by the watch. But made
an uncommon lively newspaper while l did
lest, and when retired l had duel on my
hands and three horse-whippings promised me.
The latter made no attempt to collect; how
ever. this history concerns only the former. 1t
was the old "fiush times" of the silver excite
nnent, when the population was wonderfully
wild and mixed; everybody went armed to the
teeth and insults had to he atoned for with the
best article Of blood your system could furnish
Inrthe course of my editing l made trouble
with Mr.. Lord, editor OF the rival paper. He
flew up about some little trife or other that
had said about him. do not remember now
what it was. suppose called him thief, or
body-snatcher, or an idiot, or something like
that. I was obliged to make the paper reada-
BILE, and could not fail in my duty to whole
community of subscribers merely to save the
exaggerated senstiveness of an individual. Mr..
Lord was offended, and replied vigorously in
his paper Vigorously means great deal
when it refers TO a personal editorial in from
tier newspaper Duelling was all the fashion
among the upper classes in that country, and
very few gentlemen would throw away an op-
portunity of fighting one. To kill man IN
duel caused a man to be even more looked up
to than to kill two men in the ordinary way.
Well, out there, if you abused man and that
man did not like it, you had to call him out
and kill him; otherwise you would be dis
graced. So ]. challenged Mr.. Lord, and did
hope he would not accepts but knew perfect
" well that he did not want to fight, and 80
challenged him in the most violent and impla-
cable manner. And then sat down and snf-
tered till the answer came. All our boys-the
editors-were in the Office "heping" me in the
dismal business, and telling about duels, and
discussing the code with lot OF rutians who
had experience in such things, and altogether
there was loving interSt taken In the matter
which made me unspeakably uncomfortaole.
boys were furious, and so was l-onthe sur
face
III sent him another challenge, and another
and another; and the more he did not want to
fight. the bloodthirstier became. But at last
THE mans tone changed. He appeared to be
waking up. It was becoming apparent that ne
was going to fight me, after all. / ought to
have known how it would be-he was man
who never could be depended upon. Our boys
we're exultant. / Iwos not, though 1 tried to be.
1t was now time to go out and practice. 1t
was the custom there to fight duels with navy
six-shooters at fifteen paces-load and empty
till the game for the funeral was secured. We
went to a little ravine just outside of town, and
borrowed a barn door for q target-borrowed it
of q gentleman who was absent-and we stood
this barn door up, and stood rail on end
against the middle of it to represent Lord, and
put a squash on top of the rail to represent his
head He was a very tall, lean creature, the
poorest sort of material for duel-nothing but
n line shot could "fetch" him, and, even
then he might split your bullet. Exaggeration
aside, the rail was, of course little too thin
to representhis body accurately, but the squash
was all right. If there was any intellectual
difference between the squash and his head it
was in favor of the squash.
Well, / practiced and practiced at the barn
door, and could not hit it; and l practiced at
the rail, and could not hit that; and l tried
hard for the squash, and could not hit the
SQUASH. would have been entirely disheart-
ened. but that occasionally crippled one Of
the bows, and that encouraged me to hope.
At last we began to hear pistol shots near by,
in the next ravine. We knew what that meant
The other party were out practicing, too. Then
r was in the last degree distressed; for, Of
course those people would hear our Shots and
they would send spies over the ridge, and the
spies would find my barn door without a wound
or scratch, and that would simply be the end
of me-for, of course, that man would become
as bloodthirsty as l was. Just at this moment
little bird, no larger than sparrow, flew by
aud lit on sage bush, about thirty PAGES
away and my little second, Steve Gillis, who
was j matchless marksman with a pistol
much better than was-snatched out his re-
vclver and shot the birds head off. We all
ran to pick up the game, and, sure enough,
lust at that moment some of the other duelists
came accommodating over the little ridge They
ran to the group to see what the matter was ;
and when they saw the bird, Lords second
said:
'That was a splendid shot. How far off
was itT'
Steve said with some indifference:
aOh, no great distance. About thirty PAGES }"
Thirty PAGES Heavens alive, who did it?"
"Aiy man-Twain."
''The mischief he did Can he do that Of
ten7"
"Well-yes. He can do it about-well-
about four times out of ive"
knew the little rascal was lying, but nev-
er said anything. / never told him so. He
was not of disposition to invite confidence of
that kind, so let the matter rest. But it was
a comfort to see those people look sick, and
see their under jaws drop, when Steve made
these sentiments They went off and got Lord,
and took him home; and when we got home,
half an hour later, there was note saying that
Mr ord neremntorily declined to FIGHT.