Alexandria Gazette & Daily Advertiser

[Gazette.]
ALEXANDRIA:
THURSDAY, APRIL 29, 1819.

I doubt whether a more effectual mode could be devised of putting young fools out of conceit with duelling, than exhibiting to the public correct characters, upon the oaths of several creditable witnesses, well acquainted with them, of the persons who make a practice of it. When compared with those of the men who condemn and abjure it, the contrast would be sufficiently impressive to fill all who contemplated it with horror and disgust. On one side. the virtue, the wisdom, the piety. the elegance and amenity, the consequence and the dignity of society-on the other, the profligate, the desperate, the low bred ruffians, the black-legs, the gamblers, men of ill fame, of needy circumstances, who live by the casual prey they can pick up as they prowl through the underwood of life. The evil is too serious to be laughed at. while in such hands ; else there would be a chance of its being derided out of fashion. It is only when it falls into the hands of men, the meanness of whose standing and occupations in society throw a cast of ridicule upon it, that it can be treated with derision -but among us who own no distinctions of that kind, and by whom he who laughed at the incongruity of a butcher's boy challenging a general officer, would run a risk of being set down as an anti-republican, no such weapon can be used in attacking the practice. Yet in Europe, one of the most successful modes of combating the vice, has been that of satirists putting sword and pistol into the hands of the most contemptible beings they can think of. Doctor Smollett has, in several parts of his inimitable works, reduced the business of duelling to almost as low a state of ridicule and degradation as it deserves. I am not sure in which of his works-but I rather believe that it is in Peregrine Pickle, that he introduces two doughty blockheads, who are resolute upon displaying. their valor in single combat, as agreeing, at the instance of a mischievous wag, to fight, instead of swords or pistols, with tobacco-pipes filled with assafoetida-in short, to smoke that execrably nauseous drug against each other till one should give out--innocent, no doubt, compared with the usual mode-and certainly full as brave and respectable. In another place, he makes Roderick Random persuade his friend, Hugh Strap, to challenge another to fight him with razors -as Hugh, being by trade a shaver, it was the only weapon he was likely to be expert at. How often have we seen the most ludicrous details in the European newspapers, (most of them fabricated to ridicule the custom) of haberdashers' shop-boys, blacksmiths' or taylors' apprentices, going out to fight, and uniformly ending in some ludicrous, not seldom dirty catastrophe. I remember one case which created much merriment in London. A journeyman barber and a valet out of place, happening to meet in a beer house, in the west end of the town, had an argument upon the comparative merits of bears grease and Marshall pomatum, for thickening the hair. It was too important a point to be given up with less than life, and fight they would with pistols. The publican, who was an arch, funny, ingenious dog, and had about as much feeling for those fellows as I have for other duellists, tipped the wink to a neighbor of his, a butcher, who happened to be taking his beer too, and proposed to him to join with him in accommodating the gentlemen duellists with pistols, and in seeing, as seconds, fair play between them ; at the same time fixing on the yard behind his house for the place of deadly meeting. Having settled this to the satisfaction of the combatants, the two seconds returned to prepare and charge the weapons, which having done in ten or fifteen minutes, they gave notice to the others to come forth and take their ground. Every thing was done in the form, which, according to the information they had received, was done by great gentlemen duellists in such circumstances. The ground was measured at ten yards--they took their respective stands-. the word fire was given--each pulled his trigger, and the barber, feeling something touch him, looked down, and seeing with horror his white clothes besmeared with blood, roared out with a dismal yell, "I am a dead man," and fell upon the ground.- The valet, seeing his adversary's plight cryed out in terrible consternation, "God deliver me, I have killed a man, and I shall be hanged as round as a juggler's box"-- and was preparing to take to his heels, when the parish beadle, who lived opposite, and whom our landlord had sent to invite over on the occasion, rushed into the yard, and in the king's name made them all prisoners. The fact was, that mine host, who much relished a joke, and loved mischief still more, had, with a view to torment the wretches, and at the same time cast ridicule on the practice of duelling. which he heartily despised, fomented the quarrel, and with the help of the butcher. instead of leaden bullets, put clotted blood into the pistols. The valet was the better shot of the two. and hit the poor comber of hair. After enjoying their terror and consternation for some time, during which one of the combatants was firmly persuaded that he was on his way to the other world. and the other, that he would inevitably be hanged-the landlord urging the supposed wounded man to repent and prepare for death, and the valet offering all he had about him to the beadle to let him escape -the two seconds joined in beseeching the latter to let the wretch escape:—-the fellow pretending to relent, let go his hold, and the miserable culprit disappeared. But the most difficult thing of all was to persuade the barber that he was not wounded to death :-of which, when he was assured, he paid his reckoning and departed, promising the others, in which they readily believed him, that he never would attempt again to play the gentleman in duel, but if he should have a quarrel with any one, content himself with boxing it out as well as he should be able.

The story went abroad, and was soon rendered more widely useful by being represented in an excellent caricature print. which was supposed to have prevented many a coxcomb from making a fool of himself.

Ridiculous as this story seems, it is not an atom more so, or more contemptible or degrading to the parties concerned than ninety nine in a hundred of the duels which pass off in our newspapers without comment.—Indeed, in my opinion, a man bearing the name of a gentleman, and having pretensions to education and intelligence, is a thousand times more contemptible for flashing away as a duellist than a valet or barber, or a man of bad education and low breeding can be.

To conclude, my advice to my duelling fellow citizens is, to dismiss powder and ball and pistols altogether, and if they must fight, to fight in a manner more becoming them ;and in conformity to the suggestion of Dr. Smollett, to smoke assafoetida against each other, or any other more stinking matter they can lay their hands upon.