New-York tribune., 1908-01-04
SPARE THE DUEL!

Americans have often felt inclined to laugh
at the Partisan duel, but when they read of
certain HOmerc occurrence Involving two of
the haute siobleSse their respect for the duel
must increase Paris needs the duel and We
hope that nothing will be done by law or laugh
ter to diminish the prestige of that honorable
Notwithstanding, at least. until somehow
into the Frenchman, along with the instinct for
artistic perfection in general. shall be instlled
an instinct for the art of using the fists. We
maintain that certain missiles employed were
so cleariH against the art whose critical canOns
have been laid down for all time by Queens
berry that no AnglO-SaXon gentleman would
have thought of using them, and we assert,
without fear of contradiction, that the APP
plicatiOn of Brother Jeans toes to the pros
trate form of Cousin Hele while Brother
Boni was clawing him viciously if Intellectually
from above was a violation of the unties of
combat beside which Shakespeare's violation
Of the unities of the stage fades into insignii-
canoe Therefore say again that Paris needs
the duel.
1t is bloOdless and dignified way of settling
personal differences and withal it has romantic
traditions about ii and it serves to protect
Frances reputation for civilization 1t suits
the French habits Of mind and body and the
nations lack of development in that artistic
feeling to which we have alluded Accompanied
by a rlnge of the sword or by coup de pisfO-
let the remark made by of Thursdays
contestants This is a New Years present
from my Children is a truly effective bit OF
eIoquence worthy of being staged in one of the
best of Paris theatres; but uttered along with
a copious missile of the kind employed in this
encounter it loses much of its dramatic force
end its poetic SAVIOR. No one but a Frenchman
would think of doing the thing and accompany
ing it with so noble a sentiment of domestic
affection 1t belongs to the dramaturgy of the
duel.
We wonder what would have become of the
reputation of France for being ii nation com
posed of arbiters of the elegances if all the
noble and distinguished gentlemen, titled and
otherwise authors and dramatistS. statesmen
and journalists, who have faced each other
with blunt pointed rapiers or with dueing
pistols loaded with hollow and resilient bullets
uttering sentences of intensely dramatic ap-
propriateness. had chosen rather the method
of Thursdays meeting and had assaulted each
other in the manner so graphically described
In the dispatches, and had rolled in the gutter
and if with entire disregard Of the unties of
fstic combat third person had intruded his
boots into the melee Being of the Anglo Saxon
race whose artistic sense is perhaps a little
warped IN the direction of an overkeen per-
ception of proper means and ends and unities
of combat. our soul shudders at the thought
and our only satisfaction is in apprehending
that we feel in the contemplation of French
fighting without weapons just the way Voltaire
felt regarding Shakespeares dramas. We know
the exclamation "Barbarous,' bespeaks race
egoism and proceeds from the darkness of.
race selfcomplacency, bat we recall no in
cident of recent timeh so well calculated as
this to restore its full force to the old belief