The age-herald., 1897-12-26
THE HIP POCKET
 AND HANDY REVOLVER
-:-BY JOHN ". DUsosE.

such wea pon $l 900 and make ii a felony 10
 offer one for sale in the bounds of the state.
 A very profound inquiry now proceeds into the enormous record of homicldes in
 the state of South Carolina, especially,
 and collaterally in Texas and Kentucky.
 MT Redfeld of the north has written a
 book comprising his investigations in the
 south and in the north contrasting the
 records of the two sections, He finds more
 men killed by weapons in the hands ot
 others in South Carolina than Tn the SIX
 New England states and two middle west
 ern states combined, in one year named;
 more in Texas than in ten nothern states
 combined; more in Kentucky than In eight
 northern states combined.
 Be the figures as they may, the southern
 killings were mostly homicdes, not malie-
 ious murders, and the negro element IS lh-
 termingled with the record. Martin Thorn
 in New York Luetgert in Chicago, Durraht
 in San Francisco are essentially northern
 cases. In South Carolina and ire olher
 states of the south named, very tSW sui
 cfdes, so common at the north, are known
 few insane are found in comparison with
 the north. In all southern states the Ja,is
 and penitentiaries are populated mostly py
 negroes. ,.
 But the attorney general of South Caro-
 ,;,,o renorts on hofnicides as follows:
 s.rrha number of homie ides for 1897 was luz'
 "The number of homicides for 1887 was lO2:
 105: 1893 1Sl 1S94 III; 1895, 2lO; 1895 292 lS9f' 231' ,s ...,
 Are the people of the south self-goVefn-
 ing? Have they the quantum of prosperity and the measure of hopefulness in the fu-
 ture arising from a consciousness or Jus
 tice in government necessary to the ae- Velopment of a true Christianity gre they self-conident? What has been thelf history in lines of freedom from menace
 from without and conscious security T,lth- in?
 There had been no year, since 1920, up to 1860 when more or less active preparations were not made in the northern states to create an instruction of slaves Tn Soutn | Carolina and in the whole south. In lSSa President Jackson sent a message to con | gross making official notice of the most | solemn kind of these bold and heartiess i attempts to deluge half the states in ln- | nocent blood William Lloyd Garrison, the | actual leader of the abolition crusades dc | cared 'No slave holder is entitled to his 1 life" forgetting that white, red and black 1 slaves were held in New England at the 1 time of his own fore-fathers births John Brown went to Kansas Territory in 1S55-o6 i with an organized band expressly devoted | to the task of deterring southern men from | settling there by staying them in their 1 widely scattered houses at night in cold 1 blood His gang butchered fourteen south | ern men one night all taken from their | beds and families. In 1S57-5S he was busy : in New England dispatching emissaries ! into the southern states with strychnine
 to poison wells and with instructions to ! tho negroes to organize for an uprising as soon as the next president should be elect | ed who, as he assured them, would send
 an army down which would free them and ! slay their masters. Lincoln took up the | scheme of Brown and since 1865 the south ! ern people have lived under conditions so
 chafng exasperating, humiliating and inn | Doverishing to a brave people that the
 wonder is in the comparatively orderly l lives they lead.
 | Return for one moment to the duellists,
 who did not carry revovers. John Lyde | Wilson, once governor of South Carolina, | wrote the code in 1898, which governed all | combats of gentlemen thereafter on the ! field of honor. Section l. of chapter 1, is as | follows: "WheneVer you believe you are | insulted, if the insult be In public and by words behavior, never resent it there, if | you have self-command enough to avoid noticing it. If resented there you offer an | indignity to the company, which you | should not" The other sections enjoin | calmness under all provocations and the | intervention of a friend who is discreet | and cool and who always seeks, first. 1 peaceful settlement. Under this code. Col. 1 John Cunningham. high authority, always 1 contended that one exchange of shots ! satisfied the point of honor, the combaants 1 posted thirty to forty-five feet apart. Un- | der this code, Col. Alfred Rhett received l two shots from Mai Vanderhorst. without 1 returning either. merely firing his pistol in | the air each time. Under this code the ! Cltngman-Yancey duel came off. Yancey 1 told Huger, his second, he would not aim | at Clingman. Huger demanded he should | find another second on those terms. Yam l coy then consented. reserving the right 10 1 aim low so as to avoid a vital part He | did, as the ball vas seen to have struck | the ground immediatelv behind Clingman JOHN w. .DUBOSE.