DUELLING IN HUNGARY

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXI, 16 February 1937, Page 10

DUELLING IN HUNGARY

A DOCTOR’S OPPONENTS 'United Bren* Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright) BUDAPEST, 14th February. "I want to get them oil my chest,” said Dr Francis Sarga, referring to three remaining duels, one of which he fought to-day with a former suitor of his wife, M. Vitez de Vazsony, a bank official. This leaves one duel against a civil servant and another a'gainst an opponent who was wounded in a previous duel when police intervened. M. de Vazsony recently testified against Dr Saga in a lawsuit by the latter against his wife’s family. Dr Sarga subsequently refused to acknowledge M. de Vazsony's salutation, declaring that he replied to greetings only irom gentlemen. The result was a a duel of fourteen rounds with sterilised Italian sabres at a fencing school, lasting for 90 minutes. The contestants stripped to the waist and wore neck bandages. Dr Sarga, with his customary gorilla yell, in the seventh round evaded a thrust by M. de Vazsony and seriously wounded him in the hip. A surgeon bandaged the wound. The seconds vainly urged a reconciliation, and the duel was resumed. M. de Vazsony was wounded in the neck in the eighth round, and in the fourteenth broke his knee. The doctors then stopped the contest. A Budapest message on 24th November stated that, seeking to vindicate the honour of his wife, which fcad allegedly been aspersed,. Dr Francis Sarga challenged nine men to duels. He fought the first two duels with pistols secretly in a stubble field on the outskirts of the city. His first opponent was wounded in the arm and taken to hospital. In the second duel both parties missed and became reconciled. A third duel was stopped by the police after Dr Saga had inflicted a four-inch wound in his opponent’s head. - Subsequently Dr Sarga’s wife gave birth to a daughter and Dr Sarga offered, in the spirit of Christmas and in celebration of his first-born, to forgive his wife’s traducers and to withdraw the remaining duelling challenges if apologies were offered.