A Droll Duel

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXII, Issue 2, 14 January 1904, Page 6

A Droll Duel

A duellist, like many another man who takes himself too seriously, can sometimes be more powerfully influenced by ridicule than by anything else. A story current in Kentucky tells how ' Bill ' Bowman, who was a muscular Christian sixty years ago, once used this effective weapon with good results. At one of his meetings a local desperado created a disturbance, and on being publicly rebuked by Bowman, sent him a challenge to fight. Bowman, as the challenged party, had the choice of weapons. He selected a half-bus>hel of Irish potatoes as big as his fist for each man, and stipulated that his opponent must stand fifteen paces distant and that only one potato at a time should be taken from the measure. The desperado was furious at being thus insulted and made an indignant urotest, but Bowman reminded him that the challenged man had a right to choose his own weapons, and threatened to denounce th! desperado as a coward if he failed to come to time. As there was no way out of the box but to fight, the desperado consented. The fight took place on the outskirts of the town. Everybody was present to see the fun. The seconds arranged the two men in position, by the side of eaoh being a half-bushel measure filled with potatoes as hard as bricks. Bowman threw the first potato. It struck his opponei\ti and ;flew into a hundred pieces. A yell of , delight went up from the crowd. That disconcerted the desperado, and his potato new wide of the mark. Bowman watched his chance. Every time the desperado stooped for a potato, another potato took him in the side. The sixth potato struck him in the short ribs, knocking the wind completely out of him and doubling him up on the grass. The people were almost crazy with laughter, but Bowman looked as sober as if he had just finished preaching a funeral sermon. The desperado was taken home and put to bed, and there he stayed for more than a week before he recovered from the effect of his potato duel. It was a long time before another duel took place in that region.