Two Duels

New Zealand Tablet, Volume 07, Issue 45, 7 November 1907, Page 9

Two Duels

What is called ' a remarkable duel is reported to have fa.ken place in Naples a few weeks ago. Here is how it is described in a London daily paper :—

* It arose out of a quarrel between two Neapolitan aristocrats, to settle which a duel was arranged. When, however, the combatants were facing each other sword

in hana", a reconciliation was effected. Then a fresh dispute arose between Signor San Malato, one of the principals,, a noted fencer, and Signor Basilone, one of the seconds, wilh the result- that a second duel -was arranged Between them, to continue, until one of them was incapacitates. The weapons were to" be pistols. Both parties, though famed as fencers, proved very bjfcd shots, for at 65ft distance forty-one shots were exchanged witHout the shedding of blood. At the fortysecond shot, however, San Malalo grazed Ms opponent's cheek, making a slight abrasion. The seconds then intervened, honor was declared satisfied, and the duellists embraces each other amid, the report, says, a touching scene, Both comba-Uuiis were congratulated upon their coolness under- this hail of bullets. The affair lasted exactly three hours and a Jialf.'

It reminds one of- the big noise and the little harnv tllat resulted from the use of lyddite in the SouthAfrican War, or from the terrific bombardment ■of Ma- . tanzas in Ihe Spanish-American strugjgle. The net re- • suit of the thunderous onslaught of the American fleet : on the little Cuban town was (according to report) the docking of a war-mule's tail. The Neapolitan affair likewise recalls, by .in easier and mor-3 tlirett association of ideas, the famous duel between Mr. Bray and Mr. Clay ' In Brentford town, of old renown '. When the duellists ' took their stands ',- > . ' Fear made 'them tremible so, they found They both were shaking hands 0 . _ " : The result was a compromise. Said Mr. Clay to MrBray :— 'I do confess I did attach Misconduct to your name.; If I withdraw the charge, will then Your ramrod do the same ? ' Said Mr. 8., I do agreeBut think of Honor's Courts ! If we go off without a shot, There will be strange reports '. They therefore agreed 'to aim above ', as if they ' had called out the sun '. ' So up into the harmless air Their bullets they did send ; And may all other duels have 'ihat upshot in the end ! ' For all the harm the Neapolitan duellists did, they might as well have begun and ended their light, as did the duellists of Brentford, by firing 'up into the harmless air '. Unhappily, all duels on the Continent have not such an innocuous ' upshot in the end '. The spread of the (Catholic) Anti-Duelling League will, we hope, mend, and even at last end, in Continental countries, a form of folly that has thus far fyeen there 'proof and bulwark against sense '. Dear Food It tends to make us resigned to our ills if we know that irany others, are in just as evil case. And the all-round rise in the price of food-stuffs is not an experience peculiar to Australia and New Zealand ; it seems to have circled the globe. Whether this arises from an appreciation of food, or a depreciation of coin-metal, or both, we leave economists to decide. The Boston 'Pilot', in. the latest issue to -hand, quotes two bulletins of <fche United Slates Bureau of Labor, of the Department of Commerce and Labor statistics, that show a marked increase in the cost of living in the years 1905 and 1906, as compared with the ten-year period 1890-99. In the first of these two bulletins Avholesale prices of 258 articles of common consumption were tabulated for sixteen years, with the following" resuTt :— . c The 1905 average, contrasted with the year of tn We 7 S qnr' c -' age »l ices *™™s the sixteen years from 1890 to 1905, in each of the general groups of commodi-

ties, shows farm products 58.6 per cent, -higher than in 1896 ; food, etc., 29.7 per cent, higher than in 1896 ; clothes and clothing, 22.9 higher than in 1897 ; fuel and lighting, 39.4 per cent, higher than in 1894 ; metals^and implements, 41.8 per cent, higher than in 1898 ; lumber and b/uilding materials, 41.4 per cent, higher than in 1897 ; drugs and chemicals, 24.1 per cent, higher than in 1895 ; house furnishing goods, 21.5 higher than in 1897, and the materials included in the miscellaneous group, 23.4 .higher, than in 1896.'

' Summing up these statistics ', says the ' Pilot ', ' it is seen that the average cost of these articles was 15.9 per cent, higher than the average for the ten year period.' We are fold, on Ihe . testimony " of the second bulletin, that «. the avei-agje for 1906 was 5.6' per cent." abbve lliat for fhe preceding year ; 36.5 per cent, higher than in ,1897, the year of lowest prices since 1890, and 22.4 per cent. higher than for the decade from 1890 to 1899. The highest point attained since 1800 was reached in the last month of last year, when the average was 4.1 per cent, higher than for the year and 6.3 above the average for the same month in 1905. Out of the nine groups into which the 208 commodities were divided,, only two showed a decrease as against 1905, farm products and drugs and chemicals.'