OCR Text |
Show DUELING IN EUROPE. Trial and Sentence of a Successful French Combatant Dueling in Germany. The trial of M. Belz, alias Villas, in the criminal court of Aix goes to show that dueling, as it exists in France, is something some-thing far more serious than it is generally gener-ally believed to be in this country. M. Belz was the editor of a paper called The Bulletin Ofliciel du Comitc Rcvisiormiste, and HI. Louis Pierotti was employed in The Petit Provencal of Marseilles. The manuscript of a romance intended for the f euilleton of The Petit Provencal was submitted by M. Belz to the editors of that journal. M. Pierotti was charged with the duty of reading it. lie reported against it, and it was declined as unavailable. un-available. The affair was made the sub- uir-t r.f o . J OJ'HJJCl jUll L1UI CI , 111 which M. Belz considered himself sufficiently suffi-ciently wounded to call for a settlement upon the field. After considering the case, the seconds decided that there was no cause of quarrel, and the thing wa3 believed to have blown over, when M. Belz again came to the attack in an insulting in-sulting article in his paper, ending with -n.-...ut JJ, Pierotti, alluding to his ic. A ligU Pierotti, as his name indi- tlie wearmns. . T . . . , , r n-i!--r3iv. but he was a After a slifort and ierT-i i i. Tv ... - ' ., , French repub-Pierotti repub-Pierotti was run through, auu-rj-,,. dead in the arms of his seconds. While his body was lying in the Hospice de la Conception, where it was taken in the carriage of his adversary, his wife and little daughter were waitinrr for l-.iin at the Hotel de Marseilles, where he had promised to meet them to see the return re-turn of the troops from the review. M. Belz then went to a dinner party, where he loudly glorified himself on the result of the combat, which so enraged en-raged the rest of the company that they forcibly ejected him from the dining room. lie then proceeded to a banquet of Boulangists, after which he was arrested ar-rested and admitted to bail. The other day he and the four seconds in the duel appeared before the criminal court of Aix on a charge of homicide and complicity com-plicity therein. ncii ueiz came upon uie stanu to r"1-ply r"1-ply to the president of the court he ga f with a swaggering air the following s.c-count s.c-count of the affair: "M. Bouge had charge of the combat. In one hand he held his watch and in the other a cane. Pierotti and I were both naked to the waist. He defended himself very well. In fact lie astonished me. The point of my weapon struck several sev-eral times the guard of ins, and his sword pierced my glove, but without wounding me. At the last moment he rushed at me with a coup de fouet Then I riposted and ran him through." The President You must have used extraordinary force todrive your weapon completely through your adversary. Belz Why, not at alL I pushed the steel quite naturallv. Then, seeing that he was wounded, I stopped back and exclaimed, ex-claimed, "You are bleeding!" And he was dead. The President What was then done with this unfortunate young man? Bolz (in a careless tsmie) Everybody seemed to have lost his head. They all began to cry, and faith, it was'nt amusing. amus-ing. Tho President Did not Pierotti receive re-ceive several pricks in the arm before he received his mortal wound? Belz No; those scratches were made after the thrust. The President And bo for a few lines thoughtlessly written, for a quarrel without with-out reason, in which you do not figure as having had the best of it, wo find ourselves our-selves in the presence of the corpse of an intelligent and kind hearted young man, who was beloved by everybody, and is now torn forever from his little family. Voila lamoralite du duell Belz There might have been two dead men instead of one. He received two years' imprisonment. But the strangest state of alTairs exists in the German army. A Paris correspondent corre-spondent of Courier des Etat Unis writes: "Among the oCicera the thing is simple sim-ple enough, and it follows its natural course on one side of the Rhine as well as on the other. But that is not the case when a civilian becomes mixed up in the alTair. In France the officer insulted by a person outside of the army is inspired simply by his own feelings in the matter. He goes to his superior, or chef de corps, and explains the case. The latter, after having looked carefully into the matter, advises him only to fight or not to fight, as the case may be. In Germany an officer insulted under the same conditions is not free to give to tho affair the sequel that he might desire. There exists in each regiment regi-ment a tribunal of honor to whose decision de-cision he must submit. If this tribunal permits hnn to light, the ofDcer, without further hesitation, goes ahead; but, if the decision forbids him to go upon the dueling ground, the case becomes serious seri-ous for the insulted officer, because every officer who does not obtain satisfaction satis-faction for an insult is obliged to quit the army. And it is the same if the in-sulter in-sulter refuses reparation. Under these conditions, the German officer may be compelled, in spite of himself, to hand in his resignation. Even if the tribunal decides that the insulter is not worthy to cross swords with an officer, the latter, lat-ter, finding himself in the impossibility of exacting satisfaction, has no other recourse re-course than to resign. And if he does not resign in twenty -fours, he will be ! compelled to do so by the tribunal cf honor. New York Sun. A Letter Nine Tears on Its Travels. A registered letter, supposed to contain con-tain something valuable, was returned to the Baltimore postoffice recently. It was sent from here tq NwyV 1 for a party there lso-" c'oJ- Rty 15, 1881. The regain tffifTti?'? ? tered letters to be rjp2-! -within thirty days u. letter had noexpla: ; j after it nearly ni f j New York. U'thd t. will call atJhit'V He-By the By, ti you remember thatr . - - such an awful asg of teysaff"" " " She Which 1 Pun. |