15 JUNE 1901, Page 2

Everything scenic amuses Frenchmen, and Paris has been greatly interested

in a duel between M. Max Regis, the fiery Anti-Semite Mayor of Algiers, and M. Laberdesque. They fought with swords on Friday week for two hours and a half without a wound being received on either side, and then being tired, postponed further operations to the following day. They met again accordingly on Saturday, this time in presence not only of a great crowd, but of a force of gendarmes, wholooked on sympathetically, and did not offer to interfere. Nobody was killed, of course. After half-an-hour of fighting, for an audience must have its scene, M. Laberdesque slightly wounded M. Max Regis in the fore-arm, and the seconds stopped the duel. Smarting under his scratch, M. Max ,Regis called his opponent an assassin," whereupon M. Laberdesque threatened another challenge, and seconds and spectators taking up the quarrel, half-a-dozen meetings were arranged. It is believed that a, third day's fighting will come off, and then perhaps M. Laberdesque will be scratched, and both Semites and Anti-Semites will be content. In this country the whole proceeding appears farcical, but in France this is considered refined duelling."