REMARKS ON DUELLING

The mere word duel raises a smile amongst the empty headed. Hardly any one thinks for himself; he takes his thoughts ready made, like his tea when he gets up in the morning.

He opens his paper; in the paper he reads “So-and-so is the wickedest man on earth,” good; in future, whenever he hears of anything So-and-so’s done, it is wrong; and if he sees So-and-so “on the pictures,” he hisses with all his might.

Next, he reads that “such a one is the best and cleverest man on earth,” this is enough. “Such a one” can do no wrong, and if he sees “Such a one” on the cinematograph screen, he stamps and shouts with delight.

In prehistoric times someone wrote a joke in arrow-head characters about duelling; as comic subjects are scarce and have to be used over and over again, duelling became a standard “joke,” and therefore the sort of people I have mentioned grin the moment they hear the word, as they roar with laughter when they see a “comic” actor.

It always amuses me when an actor who is a “comedian” attempts a serious part.As he walks in with a despairing air, the audience shriek with laughter (because he is labelled as “comic” in their brains). The actor says in a pathetic way “my wife went out starving to beg for bread, and she found the child had fallen in the fire, and was burnt to death when she returned at length with food.”

The audience simply roll with laughter, and gasp “is he not killing?”

I merely make this digression to show how difficult it is to make people think for themselves, especially on the subject of duelling.

Duelling is a “comic subject” to them, and that is the end of it.

Just as war is necessary, so is duelling necessary. Duelling is to the individual, what war is to the nation.

The man who laughs at the word duel would not laugh if he were standing before another’s pistol, and knew that within a second of the word “fire,” he would have a bullet in his breast and be dead.

He does not differentiate between the “advertisement duels” which sometimes take place on the Continent, where neither combatant intends to shoot the other, but merely wants to get his name in the papers, and a real duel by which a wronged man seeks redress.

In a sword duel a man, if young and active, can avoid being fatally injured. He can keep all but his right wrist and knee out of danger, and as soon as he gets a scratch on them, give up the fight on the plea of being “at a disadvantage.”

But with pistols it is different, provided the seconds have not (in order to prevent a fatal termination) altered the sights or reduced the powder charge. In fact, if he has an accurate and properly loaded pistol in his hands, a good shot can make certain of hitting his opponent.

When such a one misses his man or hits him in a non-vital part, it is because he has done so purposely, not wanting to kill the man.

Sometimes a man who feels he is in the wrong, stands up to be shot at, and either misses his opponent on purpose, or does not shoot at all.

On a recent occasion, when a duellist had not fired when the word was given, someone had the bad taste to ask him why he did not shoot. The answer was “I forgot.”

This was the occasion for a stream of jokes; the writers of these jokes did not of course appreciate the chivalry of not shooting, and the delicacy of the reply. They made all sorts of silly remarks about “absentmindedness,” only exposing their own empty-headedness thereby.

Having now cleared the ground, I will in the next chapter give details of how a pistol duel is conducted, and how to train for it.

In countries where duelling is allowed, the upper classes know how to fence, and to shoot the duelling pistol; they need no teaching if called out. Any one who has learnt to shoot from instructions given in this book needs no further teaching. He only needs to be told the rules. There are, however, a few points in which duelling differs from the rapid-fire practice I have given, one being the position the pistol is raised from, and when it is permissible to raise it.