A Famous Duel.

Auckland Star, Volume XIX, Issue 23, 28 January 1888, Page 3 (Supplement)

A Famous Duel.

"How many people are - there, by-the-way, who know what actually happened in the Bennett-May duel?" (asks a writer in the "Brooklyn Citizen.") "For an event of such startling interest, to the public the newspapers were sadly unenterprising iii furnishing details. Mr Bennett might have, achieved' Ms mostfamous 'beat' on record had he designed to turn reporter'for Ms "own journal on the occasion, but the journalist was sunk in the society man, «yen if his lips hadTiot been sealed by the compact, made "upon the 'field of honour "by all the. parties concerned never to reveal the proceedings. Time ■gradnaHy relaxed this'obligation, insensibly indeed, to most of those . who contracted it, andthe whole story has' been since put together by piecemeal, but" never in type. It- seems that-after the comiatants had been tiury stationed, and'the' seconds had withdrawn out of the 'linevof fire, and when the words ' One— bVro !'• had been .pronounced-, the pistol of ,May went tfff before the third and .finaljslgnal had been. given. So much the public were apprised of, with more or less certainty,' by the papers. May's action was , attributed to no dishonesty of.purpose, but fco nervousness. -The duel was -at once interrupted, and a long discussitin .eh-' sued. The 'code' was consulted, :andaa similar incident in -one of the Jacksonian era of duels was cited as a pEeeedent for restationing "the~men aria allowing, Mr Bennett his shot at the conclusion of the resume firing command. Accordingly the men -took their positions again, May, -with his empty pistol facing an antagonist, wno now- had literally .his life to give or take. It was -a ' supteeine moment,' as the French would say, for fchedefenceless man. He knew that Bennett, who had lately gone through the latest fashionable amusement of pistol practice *srith young Belmont and other members of the jeunesse doree, could hit a silver dollar at more than the distance which now separated them. But he did not flinch. Bennett, who in an instant fcotfde »p fcis >Infod wihat' toido,: fired in the air. Luck had .given him the mastery of the situation. H« «otild ' have killed or maimed May, with-personal<!6nse-quences to himself which might .have been very inconvenient. But the shot, in the air was making "May a present of Ms life, and applying complete balm to his own wounded honour. May can never offend Bennett again. To him he is -vktttally a dead man." : ..... ...