THE DAYS OF DUELLING.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XX, Issue 17, 12 February 1892, Page 11

THE DAYS OF DUELLING.

(From the Evening Standard.) As might be expected, the sons of the Emerald Isle have been the most enthusiastic [professors of the " refined chivalry "j which held itscouit on the dewy lawn, and decided little differences of •pinion by sword tbrast or pistol bullet. The Irish Lord Norbury, • the hanging judge," was said to have " shot up " into preferment, and often carried into effect anex-judicial Benttnce of death before he assumed the ermine. Ine ante- Onion days were the jubilee time of Irish duelling, and in list of notable encounters the law lords of tha' pugnacious period are well represented. We find a Lord Chancei > in deadly combat with a Master of Rolls ; a Chief Justice fighting t peers of tha realm ; a Baron of the Exchequer doing battle with 1 own brother-in-law, and a Chancellor of the Exchequer exchangu " leaded " compliments with a Privy Councillor.

Tba cautes that led to these encounters were, generally ; "nutters light as air," a choleric word spoken over the wine-cup, a love jealousy, or a Btinging epithet applied to a political opponent. If duels wtre fashionable in our days of bitter political recriminations, the crop of combats a single Parliamentary recess would furnish would be simply appalling. Even Irish (Protestant) clergy in the old fighting days sometimes forgot their sacred calling, and appealed to carnal weapons to enforce " their opinions.*' Thus, we read of a duel having been fought in Epping Forest between Colonel Gardiner, of the Carabineers, and the Rev Mr Hill, when the Utter received a wound of which he died two days later. "Mr Hill," adds the obituary notice, " was an Irish gentleman of good address, but of rather too volatile a turn for his profession." In Ireland, before the Union, the law of the duello wps held by the gentry to be far higher than the law of the land. We find as important a personage as a Lord Lieutenant of Ireland— Lord Townshend— fighting a duel with a brother peer, Lord Bellamont, whom he placed Jwrs de combat by a bullet in the groin:

Curran, who had always a joke on his lips, often reunited friendship by a witticism on the field of fight. Bgan, a strong, burly fellow, when about exchanging shots with Curran, remarked that he might as well fire at the edge of a razor as at his adversary's thin body. "Well, then," replied Outran, "as I don't wish to take an undue advantage of Mr Bgan, let my size be chalked out on his body and I shall regard every shot outside the mark as a miss." It is also told of Curran that on one occasion a gentleman far gone in consumption challenged him to fight, the scene of tbt combat being a lonely roadside in tbe early morning. Curran's opponent, feeling very weak, said he would lean on a milestone, near which he stood, and so fight ia that position, "if Mr Ourran makes no objection." "Not the slightest, "was the reply, " and to make matters even, I shall fight leaning on the next milestone 1" Needless to pay, the only dir :harfcei he'-d on that occasion ware those of uproarious J«ughtex,