Now-a-days no one is allowed to set dogs or cocks to
fight each other,--at any rate, in England it is a penal offence,--but
men are plunged into deadly strife, against their will, by the
operation of this ridiculous, superstitious and absurd principle,
which imposes upon us the obligation, as its narrow-minded supporters
and advocates declare, of fighting with one another like gladiators,
for any little trifle. Let me recommend our purists to adopt the
expression _baiting_[1] instead of _duel_, which probably comes to us,
not from the Latin _duellum_, but from the Spanish _duelo_,--meaning
suffering, nuisance, annoyance.
[Footnote 1: _Ritterhetze_]
In any case, we may well laugh at the pedantic excess to which this
foolish system has been carried. It is really revolting that this
principle, with its absurd code, can form a power within the
State--_imperium in imperio_--a power too easily put in motion, which,
recognizing no right but might, tyrannizes over the classes which come
within its range, by keeping up a sort of inquisition, before which
any one may be haled on the most flimsy pretext, and there and then be
tried on an issue of life and death between himself and his opponent.
This is the lurking place from which every rascal, if he only belongs
to the classes in question, may menace and even exterminate the
noblest and best of men, who, as such, must of course be an object of
hatred to him.
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