DETAILS AS TO DUELLING

The following remarks on duelling apply only to countries where duelling is permitted.

In duelling the challenged has the right to choose what weapons are to be used, pistols or swords.

The pistol is the weapon for any one deeply wronged, provided he is anything of a pistol shot.

In a sword duel the duellist can parry; in a pistol one, he cannot parry, but he can shoot first. If his adversary is a good shot and intends to kill him, his best chance is to hit him before he can fire. A man who knows he is in the wrong and also knows he has a man in front of him, determined to kill him, is very apt to shoot too hurriedly and wildly.

Suppose A. who is a good pistol shot and an indifferent fencer, wishes to fight a duel to the death with B., who is a good swordsman but a bad pistol shot.

It would be very bad policy for A. to send a challenge to B. It would be equally bad policy for B. even if he does not want to fight, to refuse A.’s challenge, if he knows A. wants to kill him.

The reason A. makes a mistake in challenging is that B. when challenged, can choose swords as the weapons, which gives him the advantage.

If B. does not want to fight, having nothing to gain by killing A. and objecting to have A. try and kill him, refusing to fight avails him nothing. It puts him in a worse position. A. has merely to take the opportunity when B. is in a public place to insult B. and compel B. to challenge him else B. is publicly branded as a coward. A. now being the challenged can select weapons and chooses pistols, thus signing B.’s death-warrant.

The most important thing of all in a pistol duel, is not to lift the pistol before the word “feu.”

There is very little danger of shooting too late, each wishing to hit the other first prevents that, but there is a very serious risk of lifting the pistol before the word “feu.”

The best way to avoid this risk is to be determined, at whatever cost, never to lift too soon either in practice or competition, so that in case of having to fight a duel there is no risk of lifting too soon; it should become so mechanical to wait an appreciable interval before lifting the pistol after the word “feu,” that there can be no shadow of a doubt that the pistol has not been lifted too soon.

It is an unpardonable fault to get into the habit of lifting the pistol too soon in competition.

The best way to cure this fault if acquired (the most difficult of all faults to eradicate, it being one of nerves) is to lift just before the word “un,” not after the word “feu,” and get into the habit of treating the word “feu” as you do attention, as just an order to get prepared to lift, not as the order to lift.

In time you will entirely lose all desire to lift at the word “feu.” You may be a shade slower in your shots, but this is counterbalanced by the absence of the dread of being too soon.

A man who has been several times disqualified in competition for being too soon, may get very slow in lifting and wild in his shooting, as his whole attention is fixed on the words of command instead of on doing good shooting.

Some men adapt a slightly forward lean in shooting, like pigeon shots or a runner on the mark. I do not think there is any advantage in this as there is no recoil to stand up against in a duelling pistol as in a pigeon gun.

The objection to this position is that it does not give the appearance of absolute ease and confidence, so necessary in duelling. It looks like anxiety.

Now half the battle, as any one who has boxed knows, is to “get a healthy funk” in his adversary before the fight begins.

If you draw yourself up slowly to your full height, plant your feet firmly and look your opponent well over, it will have much more effect on his nerves, than if you stand in an eager excited attitude.Carpentier has this gift to perfection, better than any other fighter I have seen. He has such an air of perfect reliance in himself and confidence and contempt for his adversary, that the latter seemed almost to quail before him.

When the pistol is handed to you, you are not allowed to test the trigger-pull, but you can make a shrewd guess of its strength as you cock it, if you lift the hammer high and let it drop clean back into the bend.

A heavy trigger-pull gives a much louder click in cocking than a light one. I bought Ira Paine’s hair trigger Smith & Wesson revolver, which he used for his dangerous feats on the stage, and I hardly hear any sound in cocking it,—the trigger-pull is so light.

Byron, speaking of duelling, in Don Juan, says:

It has a strange quick jar upon the ear,
That cocking of a pistol, when you know
A moment more will bring the sights to bear
Upon your person, twelve yards off or so;
A gentlemanly distance, not too near
If you have got a former friend or foe;
But after being fired at once or twice,
The ear becomes more Irish, and less nice.
Canto IV.: Stanza XLI.