MURDER IN JEST.
To Mr. Sleigh, Barrister-at-Law.
Mr. Sleigh, Mr. Sleigh, pray mind what jokes you make in your capacity of Advocate. It is quite true that the Mansion House is a comic tribunal. It is equally undeniable that a squabble between two gentlemen, named respectively Lazarus Simon Magnus and Henry Guedalla, the later being a member of the Stock Exchange, both of them shareholders in the Great Eastern steamship, and the dispute having originated from an altercation which took place at a meeting of that body, must necessarily be an absurd affair. A snobbish, ill-written, mis-spelt, threatening letter, which one gent, evidently of the Hebrew persuasion, is accused of sending to another gent, probably of the same, undoubtedly constitutes a ludicrous case. The epistle, however, which Mr. Lazarus Simon Magnus, or Simon Magus, was charged with writing to Mr. Guedalla, contained an offer to fight a duel; and in allusion to this, I find you addressing the subjoined facetious observations to the Lord Mayor:-
“The only part of the letter which I should have supposed would have excited attention in these days of Rifle Corps and martial enthusiasm in that which offers satisfaction, and to which I should have thought any gentleman feeling himself insulted would have given his perfect acquiescence, although my learned friends has told us that duelling has been scouted from among gentlemen.”
Now, Mr. Sleigh, this is a sort of fun of I which I hope that you will give us no more. To jest, in a court of justice, even though in the Mansion House, and before the Mayor, on fear, imputed to one gent, of fighting another gent, is mischievous waggery. It is not so very long since two linendraper’s assistants fought a duel; one of them was killed, the survivor and the seconds were tried for murder, convicted of manslaughter, and imprisoned for some two years. Duelling accordingly lost caste, and we have had little or none of it since the shop-boy was shot. “In these days,” however, “of Rifle Corps and martial enthusiasm,” as you say, a revival of the practice is a not unlikely peril. The world is not getting more intelligent or humane than it was; brutal duels have lately taken place in France; duels more brutal still in America.
As to the immorality and wickedness of duelling, I will not say a word, because if I did you would laugh me to scorn, either for telling you what you deem a truism, or for asserting principles which you disbelieve and deride. But I would ask you to observe, that the prevalence of the usage of mortal combat is a dreadful nuisance to any man who has brains in his head, and objects to have them blown out by the hands, and at the will, of a blockhead. There was a time, when, if the greatest fool at large, and occupying the station of a gentleman, thought proper to give me the lie, the insult itself being contemptibly false, I was obliged, on pain of infamy, to call him out, and allow him a chance of shooting me through the head, or any other part of the body situated in front.
Fancy the plague which it would now be, to be forced to incur the risk not merely of the loss of life, but even that of the loss of a limb, for a cause of no more concern to you than the bark of a dog! Observe, that the risk would be all your own; for what wise man would shoot the fool he was compelled to challenge, and consequently have to stand a trial for his life, and at least get found guilty of manslaughter, which is felony, and entails loss of goods and chattels; as you ought to know. So, no more jokes on the subject of duelling, if you love me; your gentle monitor,
Punch.
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