swal (734)
lowed all other passions that he should delight to drag by the hair about the streets of a conquered city its fair daughters in torn robes and with bleedina; limbs ?
Then there is the institution of slavery, which within these few centuries had half the world for its supporters, that most anomalous of social anomalies, which under the laws of man enable man to hold man as merchandise, to own him, order him, bind him, beat him, kill him—no one to-day openly upholds human slavery as in the abstract right but would blush for his opinion did he but know the depth of his own ignorance and error.
The origin of the duello may be sought in that savage sentiment of justice which made every individual the indicator of his riofhts and the aveng^er of his wrongs. Before the coalescence of wandering tribes, and in the absence of a central power embodyino; the delecrated rio;ht of individuals, that which is now the ultima ratio regum, was then the right of every member of the patriarchal association.
Thence the sentiment assumed the form of superstition. The earlier methods of determining^ ouilt were no less imperfect than those at present m force. Sufferers saw that governors and judges appointed to arbitrate between accuser and accused were not infallible; consequently appeal to a higher power direct, in the form of combat, became a custom. When the intellect was so far emancipated as to perceive that the almighty did not interpose the finger of justice in these trials of brute force, the practice had already so fastened itself upon society as a fashion, that for centuries neither right nor reason was able wholly to eradicate it.
It was during the age of chivalry when tilts and tournaments encouraged a display of personal prowess, and fostered the worship of courage and punctilio, that the duel assumed its most magnificent proportions. In legal proceedings it sometimes took' the place of an oath. Public opinion kept the practice in
