The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1873-05-27

4 Will not mothers begin the crusade by
inculcating nobler ideas of responsibility than
now obtain among their sons? Can not silly
women be made to realize the gross immo-
rality of scorning and vilifying the man who
respects himself too highly to place his life
in the hands of one whom he either hates or
despises2 Is it not possible to invent code
OF honor more compatible with reason and
Christianity If violence must be done, and
muscle be wanting in either one or both
cases, why not hire equally matched pugilists,
pay them for their manly pummellinp, and
when the last round has been fought shake
hands across the victor's bloody nosep If
public opinion becomes sufficiently civilized
to set up the creed that mans best defence
Of his honor is defence of right and
acknowledgment Of wrong arbitration will
be the panacea for private as well az national
grievances. England and America have not
lost their honor by appealing from war to
argument. Why, then, should individuals2
How is right INDICATED by the death of the
person wronged9 Is not the duello prepos-
terously illogicalf Virginia appreciates its
crime by stigmatizing it as murder. Not
State in the Union but should SO inscribe it on
its statute book, and not one should shrink
from making the law respected by its enforce
ment on the scaffold. The sooner we are fur
nished with an example the better for public
morals. A~ a &A N3A
ling, shooting on sight or from behind q
fence are either the decivilized beings called
s'border rufians," who form the camp fol-
lowers of the pioneer army in the great West,
or else the loahng, chattering scions of the
Southern chivalry. From whatever social
grade they are taken they are parasitic nom
producers. In the South it is most frequently
better men than themselves who are brought
to hostile meeting Gan the civilization of
the nineteenth century take its code of honor
from such sources without blush? Civiliza-
ton has long ago recognized COW stealing as
robbery; yet ''baron, or squire, or knight of
the SHIRE" in feudal times, when the challenge
to mortal combat was imperative among peers,
found seattle lifting an honorable as well as
profitable pastime. The COW thief we now
send to the Penitentiary, and we hope soon
to see the surviving principal and all the
accessories to the act in fatal duel sent to
the gallows This Mccarthy, who is now in
Richmond Jail recovering from his black eyes
and his bullet wound, is the first under the
law Of Virginia indictable for murder as
duellist. We demand the trial ofthis man and
his accessories for the crime of murder As
the law stands his conviction and theirs
should follow Then, beneath stout gal
lows beam, we shall expect to see the duello
die in the persons of the man and his accom-
plices who murdered -Mordecai. With this
example we shall in q few years find killing
by the code more disreputable than cow
thieving because much more dangerous.
The GOODNESS of seconds in duel is proverbial.
Treated as the delicate high priests Of murder,
they glow all over with kind of sanguinary
righteousness and sanctifed complacency.
Treated like their compeers, the rufians who
hold o man down while the murderer stabs,
cudgels or pistols him to death (that is, with
another moose on the gallows) seconds will be as
scarce as principals. The Colonel Tabs,
the McCarthys and Mordecais will find some
other way out Of their difficulties besides pre-
posterous truce cartels" and brutalizing MUIR
der. The duel never made gentleman, sell
dom, if ever, satisfactorily redressed wrong,
while it has elevated contemptibly petty quar-
rels into bloody feuds, has made valuable life
cheap, and has, wherever it has fourished,
given birth to race of insolent DULLES,
whether known as knights, border ruffans,
braves, fre-eaters, Mohicans, blood-tubs,
plug-uglies or nigger-driving chevaliers. The
cartel has been the only means through which
the bully committed murder with impunity.
We now invoke the extremity of the law upon
oil the survivors criminally concerned in the
Mordecai murder, that the young "bloods''
may learn to make their fantastic ideas Of
''honor" subservient to the laws dict,m of
the inviolability of human life and the safety
of the citizen. essnzset2 81
The MEXICAN MINISTER ON COLONEL
MCKENZIE INCLUSION I'VE are pleased to hear
that Sefor Mariscal, the Mexican Minister at
Washington. is Of the opinion that no trouble
will ensue from the invasion of Mexico by
Colonel Mckenzie and his United States
troopers in pursuit Of those thieving Kicka-
poos from Texas, who had learned to believe
that in crossing the Rio Grande with their
plumber they were perfectly SAFE Sehor
Mariscal has very good reasons for his opin-
ion, inasmuch as within the last two years,
according to his testimony, the Mexicans, on
their Indian hunts, have several times pur-
sued their game into Texas. So, then, upon
the good old rule that zone good turn de-
serves another. MclEenzie's incursion is an
act OF reciprocity and is oil right But it is
little curious that the secret of these Mexican
military incursions into Texas should leak
out at last from the Mexican Minister