Punch (9.1845)

THE

]VTR. ROEBUCK lias, at least, done one good thing. He has
caused a great fall in the price of duelling-pistols. In a few
years, and such social instruments will be only so much old iron.
Hair-triggers, at least a few samples, 'will be preserved by the
Meyricks and other virtuosi among the weapons of a by-gone time
—of an extinct age of barbarism. They will take their place with
the scalping knife of the Red Man. A few nights since Mr. Roe-
buck, in his place in the House of Commons, flung some hard words
at the Irish Repeal Members and their Great Cham, O'Connell.
There are few who can deny the truth of the assertions of the
Member for Bath : but then, it is said, truth is not to be spattered
about in the material of dirt. The Irish Repeal Members—the
mild " sucking-doves" of Conciliation Hall—the orators, who when
speaking of the Saxon, link nameless phrases together—pretty and
innocent as chains of daisies made by children—these, the sensitive
and soft-spoken, when truth is to be dealt out upon them, would
have it very mild and sweet, indeed ! They would invoke Truth,
as the Poet invokes spring :

" Veiled in a shower of roses, soft, descend I"

And when truth comes not in such odoriferous stream, but in a shower

lege, and is praised and patted on the back by the Prime Minister
and others for his true courage. "Whereupon, Mr. Somers does not
offer a pistol at Mr. Roebuck, but an apology; a wiser and a better
thing.

It has been urged, that since Mr. Roebuck will not fight, he
ought not, by his abusive powers, to render himself obnoxious to
a challenge. Mr. Roebuck is no general favourite of ours. He is
too "splenetic and rash"—besides being a little too much tainted
with the conceit that he was sent into the world as the world's sole
Mentor. We do not always approve of Mr. Roebuck's language:
certainly, were we to select an epithet for him, we should not borrow
that applied to Homer ; no, we should not call him " the golden-
mouthed" Roebuck. But this defect, we submit, is the greatest
argument against the sheer folly, the inexpressible stupidity of
duelling. We will suppose Mr. Roebuck to possess ten times his
present amount of vituperation : we will imagine him to be worthy
the envy of even O'Connell himself: we will think the member
for Bath a sort of human cuttle-fish, blackening, when he lists, all
around him. Well, kad he even Irish charity to defend his bad
words by a worse weapon, the pistol—would not the man he had

of mud-the sufferers, on the instant, shout for gunpowder to sweeten : fecklessJy, most unjustly abused be a fool-even though a fool ot
them from what they call the pollution. An Irish Repealer may | honour" still a fool-to give his libeller the chance of shooting him
<leal in the syllables " miscreant"—«liar"-« coward"—« renegade" I he had outraged ? Thank lieaven « the °Pimon of *ne world 13 fast
—" traitor f no word can be too dirtv for his tongue when assailing becoming a surer test of a man's honour, than hair-triggers
the Saxon : when, however, comes the turn of the Saxon to reply, he
must respond after Carnival-fashion ; with nothing harder than
sugar-plums. A sweep attacks you with handfuls of soot from a bag .
that seems inexhaustible-and you are not to take the fellow by the ^est, we come at a strange code of honour recognised in the
collar, and shake him into some sense of decency : no, you are to £™y- She states that the victim, Mr. Seton followed her with
fling nothing at him more offensive than egg-shells filled with rose- dishonourable importunities ; in the course ot which he observed-

At the moment we write, there lies another victim to the stupidity
of " gentlemanlike satisfaction." Another duellist lies in " his
bloody shroud." From the evidence of Mrs. Hawkey on the

water. If you do, his honour is hit ; his ermine-skinned reputation
is stained, and—" blood and wounds !"—he roars for pistols !

Mr. Roebuck thus denounced the Repeal worshippers of O'Con-
nell :—« Thoi

"Whatever your husband says to me, I shall not go out with him; it is impossible
for a cavalry man to mix himself up with an infantry man."

Thus, an adulterer—a scoundrel of any dye—according to this

himself considers gentlemanly

ose who follow such a leader deserve little respect either precious code, is not to give what he himself c
ition or their intellect." Whereupon, the gunpowder ' satisfaction, if he, the villain, be a " cavalry

for their position

Memberfor Sligo,Mr. SoMEBS,writesanote to Mr. Roebuck asking —
" Are you prepared to justify these words (These words are underlined.)? The mean-
ing of the words I have underlined I am sure you are too well read in the old histories
ofvhivalry to misinterpret."

Ha, Mr. Somers ! the days of such chivalry, if not gone, are fast
going : for Mr. Roebuck—vulgar man !—does not submit himself
to the chance of being killed for speaking a hard, unpalatable verity,
^ut calls up the letter-writer before the House for breach of privi-

saved from punishment by his horse. The argument is unworthy ot
the intelligence even of the quadruped !

The last few days have done mortal harm to the principle of
" gentlemanly satisfaction." Potentates have in their time caused
" Ultima ratio regum" to be inscribed on their murderous cannon. Th«
" last argument of kings ! " In like manner public opinion is fast
tracing on the duelling-pistol—Ultima ratio stultorum .' The last
argument of fools !

Vol. 9.

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