Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1913-07-24
A Dwarf on the Field Of Honor.
g RiOcWAY co.


Another oddly among affairs of honor had
for one of the principals dwarf This JET
frey Hudson, Englishman, who from his
eighth to his thirtieth year measured just eight
cen inches in height. Then this astonishing per
son began to grow, and kept at it until he had
attained a height of three feet and nine inches.
But diminutive stature proved no bar to an ad-
venturOus career On a Journey from the Con-
tinent to England he was captured by DunkirE
privateer. Afterward he fell into the hands OF
Barbary pirates He escaped finally, and re-
turned home to become captain of horse In the
civil wars.
It in France however whittier he had
gone in attendance his queen, that the duel
occurred. Some dispute arose between him and
another Englishman, named Crofts
a meeting with pistols arranged. On &C.
count of his low stature, Hudson accorded
the privilege of being mounted horseback,
while his adversary remained afoot, which was
fair enough, since Crofts tall The
dwarf. unframed himself, mortally wounded his
enemy at the first fire.
Long before the days of militant sufragettes,
women asserted their rights by engaging In the
duello, although such encounters were frowned
by the authorities.
One Of the most notable was fought over
Chasse a famous singer of the old French Acad-
envy, in which the principals were two love-sick
women both of the nobility the Polish the
other French. The weapons were pistols, and
the Frenchwoman severely wounded An
unsympathetiC government shut up the passion
ate French countess in a convent and expelled
her rival from the country.
Something of the modern press-agent flavor
clusters about the affair Of honor between
Marotte Beaupre and Catherine de Urls, actresses
OF the Hotel Bourgogne. Their meeting occurred
on the stage Of the theater, and revealed some
clever swoTd-play, but not too much blood.
In an encounter on horseback, with pistols, be-
AT1I5v,
a quarrel over a greyhound, the fair Mente was
severely wounded by her charming antagonist,
and, TOO she lost the dog
France was indeed the happy home of dueling
until after the Napoleonic Then it prac-
tcaily ceased. There had been enough of fight
ing, enough Of death.
But there came revival with the restoration,
which soon waxed absurd and at last made duel
ing wholly ridiculous.
The influence of democracy caused tradesmen
to resort to a practice hitherto confined to those
far above them in the social scale. The barber
challenged the hardware dealer who sold him a
damaged stove The charcoal seller had an affair
Of honor with the huckster who sold him onions
in a short measure. Such vugarization of the
noble art Of manning and killing wrought havoc
with the prestige of the code Indeed in France,
that stigma has never been wholly removed, and,
as rule, affairs of honor there are today with
out that underlying seriousness which they pos
sess in other countries of Europe.
Spain, from the standpoint Of the duel1st, is
entitled to credit for being both sincere and
strictly up-todate in maintaining the code AS
an instance in point may be mentioned an en-
counter arranged between two members of a
bicycle club Of Granada. named respectively
Perez and Moreno
This was fought by the men from their wheels,
with the deadly knife known the navaga The
place Of meeting a lonely bit Of the Meaga
road Perez inflicted a severe wound in the left
arm Of Moreno. then was killed by thrust in
the right breast.