A LAW IMPOSSIBLE TO OBEY.
LET us not be harsh on anomalies in foreign laws while our own pre- sent absurdities are as glaring. Some few months back, a disastrous duel suggested to the English people, whose peculiar forte it is to be wise after the event, that duelling is a bad thing and ought to be abolished. There is a glut of " public opinion" on the sub-
ject. Ministers, the public servants, are called upon to "do some-
thing." They comply. Effectually ? Oh, no ; the subject is full of "difficulties." They do not pretend to abolish duelling, but they endeavour to " discourage " it ; and so Lieutenant MUNRO has been superseded because he would not take his trial for "murder," and the bereaved widow of the " murdered " Colonel FAWCETT has been refused a pension. These are the measures which seem to the wisdom of Ministers feasible and expedient ! Let us, to test their merit, look at some of the most prominent facts under this head of duelling that have lately occurred. We pass by the circumstance that there are duellists among the Cabinet Ministers themselves, as the facts are not recent ; though it is undeniable that any dare-devil who had tact and insolence enough, might at pleasure pick out any one of the Ministers and convert him into a duellist.
Last autumn, Ensign FREDERICK DACRE, of the First Bombay European Regiment, was tried for " conduct unbecoming the cha- racter of an officer and a gentleman," because he had received a blow from Ensign MAcLams " without having sought that imme- diate and legitimate redress which so gross an insult required." He was sentenced to be suspended from his rank and pay for six months. Lieutenant MUNRO, provocation not authentically known, chal- lenged his brother-in-law Colonel FAWCETT, and killed him. Mr. MITNRO is indicted for murder ; and, not caring to risk his neck, he does not appear. He is dismissed the service. Lieutenant-Colonel LUNAR FAWCETT, is challenged : he is killed ; his widow's pension is refused. Any private means that Mrs. FAWCETT may possess must here be put out of the account—her husband is challenged and killed, and Ministers sentence his widow to destitution.
Attorney-General SMITH is roughly handled by an opposing counsel, whom he challenges in court. He is warmly defended by Ministers, and his fault extenuated as a perfectly venial offence.
Perhaps there is a Mrs. SMITH. If so, the difference between her and Mrs. FAWCETT is this : her husband was not the challenged, but the challenger ; she did not lose, but keeps, her husband ; her pension is not withheld, but his official salary—nay, the prospect of promotion to a higher office—is spontaneously and eagerly preserved to him.
The difference between the two challengers, Mr. MUNRO and Mr. SMITH, is this : Mr. MUNRO'S antagonist accepted the challenge, and in the natural course of powder and shot was killed; Mr. MUNRO is charged with murder, and dealt with as an outlaw : Mr. &arm's antagonist declined the challenge ; Mr. SMITH is rewarded with impunity for Mr. FITZGIBBON'S forbearance, and is fatigued with compliments on his gentlemanly feeling. It is to be noted, that the provocation to Colonel FAWCETT or Mr. Mulatto is absolutely unknown in any authentic shape. Mr. Mmoto may have been the aggressor, or Colonel FAWCETT. It is net therefore the circumstances that constitute the offence in the eye of the military authorities, for the circumstances are unknown. Be the real provocation imputable to one or other, both are pu- nished. It is the common act, then, which is punished—simply the duel. But Mr. DACHE was punished for not fighting a duel.
It appears then, that if a man abstain from fighting a duel, he is
punishable by degradation and mulct. If he challenge, he may be superseded. If he be challenged, his widow may be mulcted. Here is a law that so shifts its ground as to render obedience impracti- cable, disobedience and punishment inevitable. Is not that cruelty and opprcsion ? It may be said that this is a new regulation under which Mrs. FAWCETT suffers. Several lawmakers have lately been caught in- fringing one of their own laws, because a turn has been given to it which, by the help of their own inattention, " surprises " them ; and all parties—all parties connected with them by class or private in- terest—combine to procure a special law for their indemnity. There is no compunction at taking Mrs. FAWCETT by surprise. Sir ROBERT PEEL says there are "difficulties" in the way of doing any thing effectual. Surely there are the greatest of all dif- ficulties sown by every act of palpable injustice. Legislation may be too mechanical a method of dealing with a subject so evanescent and intangible as factitious "honour." Other means, however, might be taken. A circular of instructions or recommendations might issue from the Horse Guards, prescribing what officers should do in "affairs of honour"; and statute-law might be made, if not to enforce, at least not to contradict the honorary code. By a little ingenuity and breadth of view, the code might be made such as would include all the tribe of "gentlemen." Future acts might be tried by that new law, but past acts should be judged by the old practice. Nay, without any formal document, if the Duke of WELLINGTON, " haud ignarus mali," after consulting with his most intelligent friends, military and legal, professional and unprofes- sional, were from his place in Parliament to deliver an exposition of his own mature view as to the principles which should guide officers and gentlemen, that of itself would be accepted as a valid code. At present all is at sea ; and every bully in the Opera-lobbies has the power to inflict inevitable punishment on any gentleman who has the misfortune to bear her Majesty's commission, by forcing him to accept the dangerous triple alternative, of challenging, being challenged, or declining.
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