THE DUEL. 383 



they said that all personal quarrels, as well as national 

 differences, should be " settled by arbitration." It is 

 all very well to say, " should be settled," but where is 

 the power to force them to be so disposed of ? Suppose 

 the strong and muscular man insults, grossly insults, 

 the weaker one, and in his own mind is well aware 

 that an arbitration must go against him, is there any 

 one weak enough to suppose that he would consent 

 to such a reference? Society loses its short, sharp, 

 and available hold over him in the abolition of the 

 duel. In cases of insult, such as the one with which 

 I am dealing, among gentlemen the error used to be 

 met directly, and in the fairest way possible, and the 

 gentleman insulted, and incapable of any other per- 

 sonal or muscular appeal, used to call the offender 

 out, who then had to place his honour and future 

 conduct in the hands of a friend, which friend or 

 second, exclusively and without the possibility of an 

 appeal from his principal, dictated to him what he 

 should do ; and where the second was a gentleman 

 and a man of sense, it was hardly possible to attain 

 the use of weapons. 



I am speaking of the duel when governed by the 

 true principles of honour, and in the hands of men 

 who knew how to conduct it. Of course, there were 

 many occasions in which its interests fell into ignorant 

 hands, who turned it into a vulgar and often san- 

 guinar}^ brawl, or brought it into ridicule, in not 

 carrying it out in extreme circumstances, " a I'ou- 

 trance." No man, no principal, should ever have 

 been permitted to go out, receive his adversary's 

 shot, and fire in the air. The fact of his firing in 

 the air is an admission of his being in the wrong, 

 and therefore his second should have acknowledged 



