A BARBAROUS SURVIVAL.

Evening Star, Issue 12093, 14 January 1904, Page 1

A BARBAROUS SURVIVAL.

d«el in its original "form, difiereatiated from tlxe combatsol gladiators and classic heroes, was devised by a Burgundian monarch of the sixth century, and accorded with the superstition ’of its age. Trial'by ordeal , had been inthe hands -of the church, whichhad grossly “faked”' verdicts die-’■ tated by self-interest and other base mo- ■ tives. The duel became a direct appeal to ■ heaven to vindicate the right. The. deathknell of the old form of wager of battle was sounded in a curious manper. - - In - the fourteenth century a- man was alleged to* -have dishonored the wife of another mail.’ 'Trial by combat was ordered, and in the presence of Charles-YL ofFrance andhia nobles a duel was fought. The accused man ‘ was-de-feated, and hanged'h! the arena; and all the people acclaimed the justice of God. Soon; after,a man was arrested on a'quite dif-' ferent charge, and confessed that-he was the culprit in .the matter for which the unfor-' innate duellist had died. Trial ,by ordeal lost caste in France, from that moment, and., the dud became the arbiter for wounded amour-propre. v Yet it died. hard. In. England trial by combat continued long after the Norman, monarchs who introduced it were dust.; So late as 1817 a man accused of murder took advantage of .the old law to. chafl.enge hi™ who mode the charge. It was’proved that it was.withm the right ol the.murderer to do so; The challenge was refused, and the culprit escaped the ’consequences of hia - crime. An Act of; Parliament in'the following year put an end to this preposterous state of the law. But duelling did not die. While such notable men as Emile De Qiraiv din, Annand Carrel, Lamartine,' AWajiHwn Dumas, Ledra RoDin, Edmund About,' and Thiers in France, with - men like Fox,‘Pitti Pulfeney, Hervey, Canning, Castlereagh, the Dukes of York' and Richmond, Wilkes, Sir Prances Burdett, Grattan,, O’Connell,: and the Duke of Wellington in this country, were all called out or called others, it was not to be expected that men less eminent would relinquish the chance of notoriety by such means. One of the ways suggested for the repression of “ragging” in the army recently advocated was the revival of the right for a man insulted to coll out the offender. But that system was struck dead by the Prince Consort. Intermittently, despite the law. duels were fought in the British Army and in society circles until close on the ’fifties. The Prince proposed Courts of Honor, secret tribunals which should arbitrate between parties after the fashion pursued in the Bavarian Army. .The suggestion came.- to nothing. He army- did not want it, and the navy was, too sensible to fool away its lives in duels. Ultimately the 'persistence of the Prince brought an amendment of the* Army Regulations, making it the most heinous offence-, to be principal in or accessory to a duel( And so the matter to-day. . - -.