DUELLISTS IN COURT

Greymouth Evening Star, 25 March 1922, Page 7

DUELLISTS IN COURT

LESSONS OF THE AVAR. A change is perceptible in publiq opinion in France with regard, to the moral aspect of duelling (states the London “Times” Paris correspondent.) The war, with its 1,500,000 graves of French heroes, has taught the lesson that French blood should not bo spilled over trivial, often fanciful, notions of private honour, but should bo regarded as sacred to the cause of patriotism. Thus duelling ■would only be permissible in the gravest cases affecting a man’s honour. A trial which camo before a Paris Police Court recently might have ( served as a test case in this respect, and it is to he regretted that it should have been upset by a legaT quibble. Last September a more than usually fierce encounter took place between Comte Emanuel de Poret and M. Camille Im large. Pistols were first, used—l wo shots each at 25 ’ yards—then the combatants had recourse to their swords. M. Lafarge was wounded twice, but not sufficiently to warrant a At the e thirteenth bout the Comte was again wounded in the arm, and the duel was then stopped. The affair excited great interest, ami the swordsmen and their seconds did not escape censure in the Press, the Minister of Justice then took action. The law forbidding duelling has long been allowed to slumber, though it must bo recognised that the police invariably step in to prevent a duel which has been advertised beforehand. As a rule ■•this only- postpones the meeting, as determined antagonists can always find a quiet spot in the suburbs in which to fight out i lie quarrel. Being too late to prevent the duel in question, the Minister ordered the two principals, with their four seconds, M. Renaud and M. de Galea on the one side, and M. Robert Bos and Captain Pierre Weisse on the other, to be summoned for unlawfully wounding and for complicity. The case got no farther than the preliminaries. Counsel Bloch argued that the Court was incompetent. ’Tlie Court took this view, and declared its incompetence to sit. This means that tlie affair will go before the assizes, when counsel will have full latitude to make a moving appeal t<> the jury, after which the latter is pretty certain to take a lenient view of the charge.