pistols--no result satisfactory to either party; then with sabres,
and the major badly hurt.

Next, a sabre-duel between journalists--the one a strong man, the
other feeble and in poor health. It was brief; the strong one drove
his sword through the weak one, and death was immediate.

Next, a duel between a lieutenant and a student of medicine.
According to the newspaper report these are the details. The
student was in a restaurant one evening: passing along, he halted
at a table to speak with some friends; near by sat a dozen military
men; the student conceived that one of these was "staring" at him;
he asked the officer to step outside and explain. This officer and
another one gathered up their caps and sabres and went out with the
student. Outside--this is the student's account--the student
introduced himself to the offending officer and said, "You seemed
to stare at me"; for answer, the officer struck at the student with
his fist; the student parried the blow; both officers drew their
sabres and attacked the young fellow, and one of them gave him a
wound on the left arm; then they withdrew. This was Saturday night.
The duel followed on Monday, in the military riding-school--the
customary duelling-ground all over Austria, apparently. The weapons
were pistols. The duelling terms were somewhat beyond custom in the
matter of severity, if I may gather that from the statement that
the combat was fought "_unter sehr schweren Bedingungen_"--to wit,
"Distance, 15 steps--with 3 steps advance." There was but one
exchange of shots. The student was hit. "He put his hand on his
breast, his body began to bend slowly forward, then collapsed in
death and sank to the ground."

It is pathetic. There are other duels in my list, but I find in
each and all of them one and the same ever-recurring defect--the
_principals_ are never present, but only their sham
representatives. The _real_ principals in any duel are not the
duellists themselves, but their families. They do the mourning, the
suffering, theirs is the loss and theirs the misery. They stake all
that, the duellist stakes nothing but his life, and that is a
trivial thing compared with what his death must cost those whom he
leaves behind him. Challenges should not mention the duellist; he
has nothi