206 Notes of the Month on [FEB. 



The guilty lenity of the courts on such occasions may let this man, 

 who has seen so much "service," loose again upon society. But the 

 law is express. Duelling is murder. For it is obviously murder to fire 

 at a man with intent to kill him. It cannot less be murder, because the 

 challenger may be killed in the attempt to kill the challenged. The 

 highway robber risks his life perhaps still more in the attempt to rob ' 

 but neither law nor common sense justifies him for the crime by the 

 personal hazard. If we are to be told that the challenged exposes him- 

 self voluntarily, we are told what is an untruth in a thousand cases out 

 of a thousand and one. The challenged is forced to the field by a sense 

 of the degradation with which the criminal and foolish notions of society 

 brand the man who shrinks from rushing from a field of blood into the 

 presence of the future world, who dreads to leave wife and children 

 probably beggars, or whose generous feelings abhor shedding the blood 

 of a rash and passionate fool. 



To say that duelling keeps society in good manners, is contradicted 

 by all experience. Good manners never originated in personal fear, but 

 in personal confidence and general goodwill. The habit of duelling 

 divides society into the bully and the coward. The Irish, half a century 

 ago, were the most habitual duellists of Europe, they were the most 

 uncivilized gentry on earth. The Irish Brigade were the most habitual 

 duelists in the French army. They were brave, but proverbially the 

 most uncivilized corps in the service ; and were in every instance kept 

 in Coventry by the native officers. The Americans now are the most 

 habitual duelists. They are proverbially the most uncivilized society 

 under the sun. Their gouging, tearing, biting, and rifle murder, are 

 below even the Indian savage. The most civilized and most intelligent, 

 the most heroic and high spirited nations of antiquity, the Greeks and 

 Romans, had no duels ; and yet for want of them, they had neither 

 insolence of manner, nor assassinations. The law must be restored to 

 its primitive meaning ; the laws of God and nature demand it. The 

 man who sends and the man who accepts the challenge, should be 

 transported for life, where death has not ensued ; where it has, the 

 survivor should he hanged. The seconds, in all cases, should be 

 transported ; for seven years or upwards, according to their share in 

 promoting, or their negligence in reconciling the quarrel. Let this 

 punishment be once inflicted, and it would not be required again for a 

 hundred years. 



Somebody or other had the immeasurable cruelty a week or two since, 

 to rob Lord Ellenborough of his donkey. His lordship was represented 

 by the Bow Street reports as inconsolable for the loss of a companion so 

 dear to all his sensibilities. He, however, found the barbarian who 

 had thus left him a prey to solitary anguish, recovered the donkey, 

 free of expense too, and is now all smiles again. 



The chief ministerial paper has lately published a succession of articles 

 that extremely perplex the quidnuncs. Windsor and its inmates are 

 handled in the most unceremonious style ; and even the highest dweller 

 is called to account for his disbursements. We give the words of one 

 paragraph, which makes every lock on our brows " emulate the fearful 

 porcupine :" 



