"From Maffei, who seems to have been unfavourable to duelling, and to have written his treatise on the other side of the question, we learn that it was generally held in his time that the duel had a peculiar virtue in furnishing a sort of judicial proof, and was of sovereign effect in demonstrating whether of two disputants had the better cause; and hence, when two duellists had taken the field, they could not lawfully retreat from the combat, because it imported the public to have the merits of the case ascertained. In contending against such views, which we may infer were at that period generally prevalent, he avers that it is as impossible by means of a duel to get at the merits of any case, as it would be to endeavour by the same agency to give the just calcu lation of an eclipse of the sun.

"In the early stages of duelling, it appears that it was difficult for two gentlemen to express an opposite opinion on any subject without involving themselves in the circumstances of having mutually given the lie, and in all the unpleasant consequences thereof. This might be a convenient state of things to those who, like the gentleman in one of Sheridan's plays, was fond of discovering choice occasions for hostile meetings; but it does not seem a favourable situation for eliciting the truth on any subject, if an adverse opinion expressed shall involve the hazard of death.

"With all the care, however, that may have been taken to exclude the expression of mere opposite statements from inferring the lie, it is evident that this state of things was by no means favourable for evolving the truth in general society. The idea at that time current, even as regards private duels, that the Deity would interpose to defend and shew the right,--was clearly a mere remnant of the former superstitious error involved in the principle of the wager of battle, or judicial combat; and truth stood a bad chance of coming forward to open view, exposed to the risk of being shot at with a pistol, maimed with sword and dagger, or thrust through with a rapier.

"We may look for a moment into the

doctrine formerly understood on the subject of one person giving the lie to another. The lie certain, was given on words spoken affirmatively. To say. 'thou hast spoken in prejudice of my reputation, and therefore dost lie,' was not held in former times a challengeable quarrel, because the time and place, and other particulars, are not specified. The lie conditional: To say, if you have said that I did so and so, you lie,' was not challengeable. The lie in general: To say, whoso reported that I betrayed my lord, doth lie falsely,' did not infer a challengeable offence. The lie in particular, is given to special persons upon express and particular matter, and seems to have been accounted challengeable. Thus : Silvano, thou saidest that, on the day of the battle of St. Quintin, I did abandon the ensign, whereof I say thou liest.' Foolish lies were not challengeable. With regard to the dementi, or giving back the lie ; if one said he hath not failed in loyalty, and another said you lie,' the former was entitled to return the lie, and make the latter the challenger. He had done no injury with his primary assertion, but had been outraged by the other.

6

"This absurd system has not escaped occasional ridicule in former days. In Shakespeare's play of As you Like it,' Touchstone says, I have had four quarrels, and like to have fought one.'

"The modern views of the laws of honour have received some slight modification since the 16th century. As the choice of weapons seems now in the general case superseded, and fire-arms are in ordinary use for duellistic encounters, it has become of less importance to throw the burden of challenge upon the adversary. Accordingly, in Hamilton's treatise, it is laid down that the challenge should always emanate from the individual who first conceives himself offended.

"The plan of posting or horsewhipping of antagonists, seems also now to be considered a questionable practice. It has been in general superseded by giving to the public prints the detail of any correspondence or circumstance that may have arisen in an affair of honour. It is said that if the aggressed horsewhip the aggressor, strike him, or call him liar, he does not efface the stain, but aggravate it by descending.' And again, It is not the original aggressor's duty (in case of being horsewhipped) to settle the case anywhere but in a court of law.'-Code of Honour. Dublin, 1824.

"The French code of duelling separates offences into three sorts: 1. a simple offence; 2. an offence of an insulting

nature; and 3. an offence with personal acts of violence. Rules are adapted to these cases, and are given by Dr. Millingen at length."

True courtesy is

etiquette as the duel. not founded on coercion; complaisant blandness of manner, obliging civility, and affability of deportment, may be disturbed by such an element of rude and flagitious compulsion; but the unwelcome intruder cannot be part and parcel of a system where gracious douceur naturally reigns.

"The practice of duelling is clearly unnatural; it stands on an artificial foundation and framework; and it may be abrogated by the same artificial means which supports it; viz. a change of opinion as to its necessity and propriety among a portion of the very small class who are exposed to it, and a firm and associated expression of that improved state of opinion.

It is no doubt natural for a man to resent an affront or injury, by weapons, it may be, in some cases, as well as by words. But the satisfaction of a duel does not propose to consist merely in the natural gratification of passion or revenge; and the duel cannot justly be esteemed, as at present constituted, a vestige of the ancient personal magistracy, possessing a quasi-legal authority to redress wrong for which the national law has no remedy. It is a nonsensical and puerile, and yet deliberate, permission by the injured party to receive quietly the shot of the aggressor over and above the injury already sustained.

But there is a spell over the minds of the duel-exposed class, so that no man within it dares speak his mind on the subject. Such is the freedom and moral bravery of the duel-exposed class!

"If the duel system were abolished, it is not unlikely that juries might be inclined to give higher damages than they would do at present, as the punishment of one gentleman inflicting a hasty blow, or other similar injury, upon another; because, in that case, the whole bulk and body of the question, in all its bearings, would be held as having come before them. Whereas, under the present system, the point of honour, the sensitive part of such a question, is almost imperceptibly and inadvertent ly felt as pertaining to another description of tribunal or award than that which a court of law affords."

"When the practice of duelling is arraigned, it is somewhat feebly attempted to be defended, on the ground that it is intended to keep, or that it has the effect of keeping, refined society within the bounds of courtesy and mutual civility. This is a hasty and mistaken excuse, received without examination, rather than a position forming any sound argument in favour of duelling. It is erroneous when judged of as a theory, and no less so when viewed in connexion with facts. Refined and urbane society is such on its own basis; it needs not so questionable a master of

"To come to facts. If the practice of duelling tend to promote courtesy, then must the inhabitants of the United States of America excel all the nations of the old continent in that respect, which, although possessing many good qualities, they do not of a truth; and on the same hypothesis, the town of New Orleans, in Louisiana, must stand out in peculiarly fair colours, where duels are said to occur every week; whereas the rudeness, boisterous, and offensive manners of that spot are proverbial throughout the world.

"On the same theory, he who has fought most duels is likely to have attained to supreme excellence in the promotion of civility and complaisance; whereas, after a man has had two or three hostile encounters in affairs of honour, he is generally avoided and repelled as a nuisance, the duel-exposed class themselves being judges.

"A general association of gentlemen in the duel-exposed rank, against duelling, effected by the adoption of a simple pledge, or engagement against the practice, is the scheme which the author would propose. We have given the theory on which such a combination would be found successful; we have demonstrated that such a confederacy prevailed in analogous cases; and, lastly, that it proved quite effectual in the case of duelling itself.

"Those who have not attended very particularly to the elements of human association, are not aware that there exists in many of the actual phenomena and realities of human nature, virtual association, although it may lack the outward framework and show of it. Association, in order to be defeated, must be met by counter-association; we affirm that the duel-exposed class in this country are in effect an association. If it be asked, where are their rules and regulations? we answer, that the codes of honour and duelling act as such. It is admitted that there has been no general or national act, erecting the duel-exposed class into a regular society; but they stand, nevertheless, as a confederacy, or combination, sufficiently arranged and bound together as to present a strong phalanx of resistance to opposition. The members of this association hold joint opinions; they separate themselves from

other classes; they follow united measures; they expel from their membership; they act, think, and say, in their peculiar department, as other leagued confederacies are in use to do. No individual can make head, in the general case, against such an alliance as this. It will, by the very laws of association, prove too strong for single parties to cope with: it must be met by a counterassociation; it must be assailed and grappled with; words or argument alone will not suffice: something else must be brought to bear upon it; and this is negative association, which will have all the power of a positive suppression."

"But to return; such counter-association as has been suggested, religious men of the duel-exposed rank might be first expected to join: then men of a somewhat high moral principle. After that, a few individuals, who might at first waver and halt, lest their character for courage should suffer; but who, encouraged by prior entrance of members, would be induced to pass the rubicon; others would join, being countenanced, supported, emboldened by those who went before. It would be by no means necessary to perfect success that the total duel-exposed class should join. Public opinion would, by degrees, strengthen on the side of truth, and, by the blessing of God, whose work this is, the pest of duelling would cease from all lands.'

"Although many moral men in this country may have stated opinions in private, manifesting their individual disapprobation of the practice of duelling; and many more without making such avowal, if it came to the point, would indubitably decline coming into a hostile field of blood, under any pretence of laws of honour having been infringed; still it may be a question how far such individuals have as yet made a sufficient and effectual public demonstration upon the subject. They have certainly hitherto raised no testimony capable of meeting the exigencies of the case. This may have been omitted, in ignorance of the power of public negative association; and of the corresponding responsibility now imposed on good men to use that instrument which Providence seems to have evolved to suit the artificial complications of the society in which we live.

"Suppose a moral and respectable family in the duel-exposed rank to have made no open declaration of their sentiments upon this subject, it is evident that, in a case of need, and where their non-avowed sentiments, if fully known, might have prevented a duel, their required certification or testimony upon

the point may be wanting at the very critical moment.'

"An association founded on judicious and undeniable elements, firmly standing up in the sight of the whole British empire; not a mere nine days' wonder, which would procure a short notice, and then drop into oblivion; but a firm barrier of progressively-increasing numbers of the worthiest and most truly influential in the land; a combination that would flare out like a sunny mountain-side, clear as day; having truth, good sense, expediency, mercy, morality, and religion, all in its favour: this would have the effect of reversing and controverting a merely artificial breath; a frame-work originally founded on a superstitious and yielding sand, and whose very foundation the mistaken appeal to Heaven has long since vanished from the face of things.

"But, so far as the religious and moral world in this country have not, as yet, made a sufficient demonstration on this important concern, so far has it abetted the childish, shameful, and pernicious practice in question. Is this true? And how far are abettors of crime guilty of crime?

"It may occur to some as an objection, in bar of any serious trouble being taken, or ponderous machinery of association made for the purpose of abrogating the practice of duelling, that it is an evil that only entails disastrous consequences on very few. If by this is meant that in Great Britain there are fatal duels but seldom, this may be allowed; but still the lamentable duel risk, like a bloody sword suspended by a hair, stretches ceaselessly over many happy families, and every hour may pierce their heart of hearts.

"It is a cup of wormwood that knows no rival gall, to have the eldest hope of a family perish thus as a fool, and to think of the barriers of the second death closed and clasped after him. Indeed it is what cannot be thought upon; the destroying memory of it is too much for humanity to endure; it must be barred out of the mind, that would exist and live upon the earth.

"But, apart from this, the questionable dilemmas in which juries and judges are placed in settling the results of duelling; the subterfuges, the tampering with oaths; the reckless, murderous, unnatural, and preposterous modes of thinking that the practice involves, are large public evils which it would be well to take even laborious measures to abolish; more particularly as the negative nature of the association would, in the case proposed, save the great bulk of members from intrusions on time and exertion.

facturing and Mining districts, from the alarming state of ignorance and demoralization disclosed to public view by recent inquiries and events.-That the success which has attended the endeavours of the National Society, under the most unfavourable circumstances, and with very limited means, to found and support Schools in the most neglected of those districts, affords the strongest encouragement to increased exertion for this specific object.—That immediate measures be taken to collect a special Fund, the whole of which shall be expended in grants towards building School-rooms, and, in certain cases, increasing or guaranteeing the salaries of teachers, for limited periods, in the Manufacturing and Mining districts."

Before these Resolutions went forth to the public, the sum of 43,730l. was subscribed by 305 contributors of 50l. each and upwards; including 1000l. from the Queen; 500l. from the Queen Dowager; the same from Prince Albert; 1000l. each from the Dukes of Portland and Northumberland, and from Sir. R. Peel and Mr. A. Hope; and other large sums from the Archbishops and Bishops, and many noblemen, clergymen, and private gentlemen; and the subscription is being zealously carried on by the friends of the Church throughout the kingdom. The Committee of the National Society remark, that "Various circumstances afford encouragement to the discharge of this important duty. There is abundant evidence that education under the superintendence of the Church will be gladly received,-may be cheaply afforded,—and, with the Divine blessing, will effectually secure its object, by instilling Christian principles, the great sources of peace and order and social happiness, into the minds of our manufacturing population." The Committee add: "The experience of thirty years has produced a deliberate and growing conviction, that the effect of educating the children of the poor has already been in a high degree beneficial, and is likely to be still more so. do not refer merely to the acknowledged fact, that the preservation of our political institutions depends, under God, upon the stability of our Church Establishment; what we especially advert to, is an important truth, too frequently overlooked, and yet universally granted by the most competent authorities, that to build churches and establish ministers is not enough, unless Church-schools be added. Hence it is that so many of the parochial clergy are such liberal contributors towards building and maintaining schools; for, to their power, we bear record, yea, and beyond their power,

We

they are willing of themselves to sacrifice their private means for the advancement of this great object. The time is short. If the Church delays much longer this duty to the young; if her influential, and wealthier, and more responsible members much longer hesitate to provide sound instruction for the people, the disastrous consequences of such neglect may be easily foreseen."

Ireland has continued to occupy much of the attention of Parliament. The Bill for the Registration and Marking of Fire-Arms has passed, and was clearly necessary as a precautionary measure; for of what utility are firearms to the great mass of the Irish peasantry;-men living in wretched hovels, whose only implement of labour is a spade to cut bog-turf and dig potatoes; whose wives and children are unconscious of shoes or stockings; and who could only wish for fire-arms for unlawful purposes? It is not good for themselves or for others that Mr. O'Connell's masses of organised agitators (to guard against a combined and terrific outbreak from whom, the towns are obliged to be strongly garrisoned,) should possess a species of arms which, in case of a popular outbreak, would render the life of every Protestant unsafe, and convert every hedge and wall into an ambush from which deeds of blood may be perpetrated with impunity ;-and though no such outbreak has yet occurred, the present ominous, politic, sullen, abstinence from violence may at one glance from a demagogue be exchanged for active rebellion. The Duke of Wellington has not disguised his opinion that the agitation is "alarming;" as indeed his military precautions prove.

The debates upon the Arms Bill in the House of Lords, have exhibited a characteristic illustration of the manner in which the Church of Rome teaches her disciples to deal with oaths prejudicial to her interests. The qualification oath of Roman Catholic members of both houses of Parliament, was purposely made as precise and stringent as possible, in order to prevent Romanists, admitted into the legislature under the "Emancipation Act," from misemploying their privilege for the subversion of the Protestant Church Establishment. At first some respect was paid to this solemn pledge; but soon unscrupulous partizans in the House of Commons, especially Mr. O'Connell, boldly affirmed that the oath did not apply to them in their legislative capacity-the very particular for which it was enactedand this doctrine has now found its way