TWENTIETH CENTURY DUELS.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Issue 1139, 8 February 1912, Page 22

TWENTIETH CENTURY DUELS.

“I will be magnanimous,” said the French duellist. “Rather than risk taking human life I will fire in the air.” Don’t do that,” responded his second; “you’d be almost sure to hit an ablator.”

From the winter edition of “Ruff’s Guide to the Turf,” now in the press, the London Sportsman learns that the total amount of stake-money won on the flat in Great Britain and Ireland during the just expired racing season

was £5 4 7,4 76 3s, which constitutes a record. The next highest total was £546,099 18s, in 1909. Leo Fall, composer of “The Girl in the Train’’ and “The Dollar Princess,” has written a miniature comic opera, which was to be produced at the London Hippodrome on December 18th. The title of the work is “The Eternal Waltz.”

American law and justice is a thing to wonder at. The story is told by a returned wanderer that once he attended a sitting of the Police Court in a Western township. A prisoner was charged with picking -pockets. He was found guilty, but as there was no more Toom in the gaol at the moment the magistrate fined him 10 dollars. “But he’s only got 6 dollars y’r honor,” a policeman pointed out. “Well, then,” replied the magistrate, tightly buttoning up his coat, “turn him loose in the crowd till he can raise the other four!”

The W.C.T.U. of Adelaide is o!ut after the scalp of the Gambling evil; also, it has a wiolent grievance against the tea and chocolate sellers who promise a cricket match or a trip to Mars to whoever collects the greatest number of their wrappers. Such customs, according to the temperance advocates, raise the worst passions in the infant breast. Wonder what they’d say to the writer’s wife, who invariably collects useless totalisator tickets for the children to play with!

An American paper tells a story illustrative of courage in a horse. A jockey was recently riding a thoroughbred racehorse ,when he was confronted by a black bear. A pistol shot only succeeded in wounding and enraging the animal, and the racehorse “jibbed” obstinately. The jockey dismounted, and got to safety in a neighbouring tree. The bear immediately attacked the thoroughbred, and a terrific conflict of hoofs and paws took place. In a short time the bear was kicked to death. It weighed 1251 b. Horses, as a general rule, fear such formidable quadrupeds as bears and tigers, and almost collapse at the sight of a camel; but the writer can cite an instance of an old thoroughbred stallion, who ran out of the plains with his mares, killing a wild camel stallion in fair fight.