DUELLING DEFENDED

Hawera Star, Volume LIV, 19 March 1935, Page 5

DUELLING DEFENDED

“HUMANE INSTITUTION” FRENCH CHAMPION’S VIEWS (United Press Association —By Electric Telegraph Copyright). LONDON, March 16. According to the Manchester Guardian’s Paris correspondent M. Joseph Renaud, a novelist and fencing champion, and a well-known duel says the duel is a necessary and even human institution. It enables the little man to protect himself against the big bully threatening personal violence. “Duelling might seem an anachronism to the Anglo-Saxon, but it is essential in France owing to the inadequacy of the law of libel,” M. Renaud says. “The Frenchman is reluctant to appear ridiculous by bringing his personal grievances to court and finding his enemy fined a few shillings. Only about one challenge in twenty produces a duel, the offender apologising in the majority of cases.

“About 100 duels are fought annually at Paris, but few arc reported in the newspapers. Blank shots are never fired. A scratch is insufficient to terminate a duel with swords and death is less unusual than people think, hut it is al-