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Show FRENCH DUEL OF TO-DAY Comparatively Harmless Affair, but as an Institution Ii Is Deeply Footed in the Nation The Correct Mode j of Procedure. me, did all you could to get out of the meeting." "Your other adversaries, M. Scholl, were, if you will reflect, all rich or well to do. I, who am extremely poor, had to count the cost of a duel. Only day before yesterday did I succeed in getting the necessary funds together." The fighting boulevardier was deeply deep-ly moved. "I do not remember on which cheek I struck you," he said. "Therefore I must kiss you on both!" And did it. A slap on the face will always bring "Which do you choose," his seconds asked a frightened duelist-in-spite-of-himself, "the dueling sword, or pistols at twenty paces?" "The dueling sword at twenty paces," was tbje answer. This duel joke was new in the days of the First Empire. In the France of to-day it has less point, because the dueling sword at twenty paces is almost al-most an accomplished fact. I "You can compare modern fencing to modern warfare," I heard a fflaitre d'armes say at the Automobile Club's about a duel, when the slapped one has any social position to defend, for example, membership in any decent club. And note, the gesture to slap is quite as effective. Frenchmen are great on these slapping slap-ping and punching gestures. You will see one aim his fist and hold it there. The other hauls back and holds himself him-self hauled back. Each looks death and fury in the other's eyes. Should the first strike, the other would strike. When neither strikes, it becomes the duty of a court of honor to place the "You Shall Hear From Me!" last fencing evening. "In the early part of the nineteenth century deaths on the field of honor had become so frequent that the judicial repression of the duel was almost brought about. "To-day all such proposals are laughed down in Parliament and press. There is no law against dueling in France; and there seems to be no need of one, in spite of the fact that duels are more frequent than ever. "The evolution of fencing on the offended party. In this land of settled formulas blows are seldom struck between men. Women pull each other's hats off, claw each other's faces, pull hair and make stabs with hatpins. Men, although engaged in the same row, content themselves with raising their canes threateningly and patiently, until some common friend or stranger intervenes. inter-venes. Why strike? The theoretical blow field of honor has rendered such a law unnecessary." - The tendency is to treat French duels lightly, because their avowed object ob-ject is no longer death, but such a wounding as will put one of the parties in a state of practical or technical inferiority. in-feriority. Nevertheless, at its worst a due! may mean physical danger, or even death; while in its least harmful event it means annoyance, expense and gossip. Therefore it preserves good manners in the public as well as private intercourse inter-course of Frenchmen admirably. A little man accidentally treads on your foot in the theater. You do not care to call him an awkward ass, because, small as he is, he may have lots of fencing practice. Now who cares to gtto" an expense if7say $100 in "Monsieur, Behold My Card!" " fell when the cane or fist was raised. "Monsieur, behold my card!" "And mine, monsieur!" "Monsieur, you shall hear from me!" "At your orders, monsieur!" Thus ends the incipient row between. be-tween. meno:j-ro dta&te3d s&yoir faire. You will ' object that to be Women Claw Each Other; Men Don't swords, surgeon, carriages, rent of dueling ground and lunch to one's seconds sec-onds for the pleasure of receiving a rip up the sword arm? In this line of thought, the greatest in the list of them all, the late Aure-llen Aure-llen Scholl, often declared that, looking look-ing back on hia encounters, he regretted re-gretted only one of them. It was the case of a young reporter who had, in something he had written, offended the sensitive pride of "the last of the boulevardiers," himself always so willing will-ing to offend the pride of others. The young reporter did not wish to fight and tried to avoid . noticing forced thus to involve one's self in an affaire with a perhaps objectionable unknown is a heavy penalty to pay to social order. Parisians of savoir faire, for this reason rea-son carry two card cases. One contains con-tains cards printed with a false name and address. When the offending or offended party seems not to be worthy of one's steel one pulls this second card case. "Monsieur, behold my card!" one says without the slightest risk. "And mine, monsieur!" replies the other. Now, if' the second card contains a false name and adress each party can tell his friends that the other party feared to meet him and no harm is done. Note, it is highly improper im-proper to foist the card of a friend or acquaintance on the irate stranger. Alphonse Daudet has maintained that the duel will always hold good among the Latin peoples, that it belongs be-longs to their idea of honor and that no civilization can do away with it. Certainly it must be a deeply rooted institution when young boys at boarding board-ing school can quarrel and save up their quarrel till the day they come of age, to fight it out in a real, sure-enough sure-enough duel. That the Paris public takes this sort of thing with the utmost ut-most seriousness was shown by the Rothschild-Lubersac encounter legs than a year ago. Paris correspondence correspon-dence New York Sun. You Don't Call Him Names. Scholl's provocations. At last Scholl was forced to slap him in the face. After a meeting in which the experienced ex-perienced duelist scratched the young reporter's forearm, he refused to shake hands with him. The youth called him aside and asked him why. "I have always fought with men of courage heretofore," was Scholl's re-ily; re-ily; "but you, after having offended |