PLAYING FOR A LIFE.

Temuka Leader, Issue 9428, 8 July 1882, Page 3

PLAYING FOR A LIFE.

Not long ago two'young fellows, journeyman bronze smiths, were sitting in a small . Warsaw . ' playing dominoe*. A glass, half full .of liquor, stood on the table between them, and one, or two of their fellow vrorkmeri were looking on at the game' with evident interest: There was Tittle in the appearance of the group to atttact especial attention—still less to suggest the improbable notion, that the 'four youths composing it were two- duelists and their seconds, or that the. stake of the domino match was a human life. Presently, however, the game having come to a conclusion, the younger of the two players,|a lad of sixteen, lifted the glass to his lips and drank off its contents at a draught. Five minutes. later he was a corpse.- The wretched boys had quarrelled, and agreed to fight a duel of such sort that the death of one or the other must ensue. Haying placed themselves in the hands of two seconds, these.; Patter, arranged that their principals should play a “ set”.of three games at dominoes, upon. the , solemn understanding that the loser should swallow a glass of the .deadliest poison procurable. This hideous compact was •carried out to the letter, nor did any of the surviving persons concerned in it, when-interrogated by the police authorities before whom they were subsequently brqught, betray the least remorse for their share in the ghastly transaction.

Julian’.-'. ; adversary iudeed, boldly avowed that, had he lost the match, he would hade fulfilled his pledge to drink the ppisoil as faithfully as had his dead antagonist ; and the seconds protested they had “done their duty in seeing the,duel fairly fought out according to tlie conditions seft|4|yffe^nfh?— Daily Telegraph. * Vi 1 1 * I