A DUEL BETWEEN LADIES.

Waikato Times, Volume IV, Issue 206, 4 September 1873, Page 2

A DUEL BETWEEN LADIES.

Two ladies in Mississippi, sajs a contemporary, bare lately asserted their rights as women to settle their differences in a manly fashion with a gallantry that cannot fail to win for them the ndmiration of their gentle sisters who mro engaged in struggling for the privileges which hare hitherto beenmonopolised by man. One of the most desperate encounter* ever heard of between two women occurred" receptly according to the VicJcsburg Herald. It seems that two ladies were engaged in conversation of an animated nature, when a crazy man, a character in the neighbourhood, passed by, and one of the ladies spoke to him in a jeering manner, " poking fun," as the other described it, at the poor old man. This led to a few tart words passing between the two, and it was. felt tnat a meeting of a hostile nature was inevitable. Accordingly, the two ladies went home for a few minutes, n^fc when tlioy emerged from their respective house* each held in her hand a large butcher's knife. They tlttn walked towarda. each other, meeting about the centre of the street, and simultaneously brandishing th« deadly weapons. With theutmost coolness and deliberation theyapproaohed each other,, one of them opening the attack by a severe stab on the faceof the other. The blow was immediately retnrned,[,and then followed a desperate hand-to-hand fray such as has been rarely equalled. One of them had got her antagonist down and was about to make " the last fatal plunge," when the bystanders seem to have thought the affair had been carried fd£ enough, and u colored man aeizing the uplifted bl&de avertext the blow. It, however, appeared that the lady waa herself at .that, moment, owing to the wounds she had received, in the throi-6 of death ; and though physicians' were hastily summoned, in lesiJ than an hour her spirit passed away for ever. Her antagonist was removed to the county gaol, where ahe> received every attention, but by the latest accounts her recovery is extremely doubtful, the painful incident has caafc quite n gloom orcr s?^{y in the neighborhood.