ses may arise, with circumstances
of contumely and outrage, growing out of deep inexorable malice, which
cannot be redressed, _as things now are_, without an appeal to the _voye
de fait_. 'But this is so barbarous an expedient in days of high
civilisation.' Why, yes, it labours with the semi-barbarism of
chivalry: yet, on the other hand, this mention of chivalry reminds me
to say, that if this practice of duelling share the blame of chivalry,
one memorable praise there is, which also it may claim as common to them
both. It is a praise which I have often insisted on; and the very
sublime of prejudice I would challenge to deny it. Burke, in his
well-known apology for chivalry, thus expresses his sense of the
immeasurable benefits which it conferred upon society, as a
supplementary code of law, reaching those cases which the weakness of
municipal law was then unavailing to meet, and at a price so trivial in
bloodshed or violence--he calls it 'the cheap defence of nations.' Yes,
undoubtedly; and surely the same praise belongs incontestably to the law
of duelling. For one duel _in esse_, there are ten thousand, every day
of our lives, amid populous cities, _in posse_: one challenge is given,
a myriad are feared: one life (and usually the most worthless, by any
actual good rendered to society) is sacrificed, suppose triennially,
from a nation; _every_ life is endangered by certain modes of behaviour.
Hence, then, and at a cost inconceivably trifling, the peace of society
is maintained in cases which no law, no severity of police, ever could
effectually reach. Brutal strength would reign paramount in the walks of
public life; brutal intoxication would follow out its lawless impulses,
were it not for the fear which now is always in the rear--the fear of
being summoned to a strict summary account, liable to the most perilous
consequences. This is not open to denial: the actual basis upon which
reposes the security of us all, the peace of our wives and our
daughters, and our own immunity from the vilest degradations under their
eyes, is the necessity, known to every gentleman, of answering for his
outrages in a way which strips him of all unfair advantages, except one
(which is not often possessed), which places the weak upon a level with
the strong, and the quiet citizen upon a level with the military
adventurer, or the ruffian of the gambling-house. The fact, I say,
cannot be denied; neither can the low price be denied at which t