after much provocation—very hard to bear—
they forced him to fight; Mr. Spencer taking
the pistols for that purpose out of his pocket.
They went into his own garden, standing at
fifteen paces, and William fired. The
surgeon fell, mortally wounded. His
murderer absconded; but the brothers and
Mr. Spencer were brought to trial for aiding
and abetting the murder. They were
acquitted; though they had fearful evidence
against them. The strongest point against
them was, that poor Cuddie, though pressed
often before he died, would never say that it
was a fair duel, and always maintained that he
had been forced into it unjustly, and
murdered.

Alexander Campbell and Alexander Boyd
were serving together, in eighteen hundred
and eight, in the Twenty-first Foot, at
Newry, in Armagh. One day they had a
slight dispute about the manner of giving
a certain order to the troops. The dispute
deepened into a quarrel; Campbell,
drawing Boyd into a room alone, fought,
disarmed, and mortally wounded him. When,
attracted by the noise, servants and officers
rushed into the room, they found Boyd
sitting on a chair, dying. Campbell besought
him to say before these strangers and witnesses
that " all had been fair." With some reluctance
the dying man said, "Yes, the duel
had been fair," but added, immediately after,
"but you are a bad man, Campbell,—a bad
man!" Captain Campbell escaped; living
for a short time at Cheltenham, with his wife
and four infant children, under an assumed
name. At last he could hold out no longer.
Haunted by that strange necessity for
confession, which so often follows on guilt, and
holding his life very lightly since that
terrible affair, he delivered himself up to
justice, was tried for the murder of his
brother officer, convicted, and condemned to
death. He was to have been hung on the
Monday, but was respited until the Wednesday
week. Mrs. Campbell, who was passionately
attached to her husband, determined to
go to England—to Windsor itself—and there
lay her petition for mercy and royal pardon
at the king's feet. The night was black and
stormy, and not a vessel would put out to
sea. In despair, and well nigh distracted, she
wandered up and down the shore until, at
last, some poor fishermen had pity on her,
and agreed to take her across—to peril their
lives for her hopes. They crossed in safety;
the boatmen refusing to accept any reward
from her, and even accompanying her some
miles on the road. She reached Windsor at
eight o'clock in the evening—after the king
had retired to his own apartments; but, the
queen, pitying her distress and full of
womanly sympathy, undertook to deliver her
petition that night to his Majesty, while she
and the royal family made much of the poor
afflicted wife, and comforted her with hopes
and possibilities. It was, however, decided
that Captain Campbell should suffer, though
the wife was sent away, still hoping. The
day she reached Ayr—her father's home
—she met her husband's corpse. He had
been hanged, as sentenced; his own regiment
mounting guard round the gallows, taking off
their bonnets and praying audibly as he
appeared, with a firm step and military
bearing.

One stormy day, in eighteen hundred
and fifteen, a ship was driven ashore on a.
certain part of the Irish coast. A gentleman,
Major Hillas, a brave, and humane
man, went down to the shore to prevent any
attempt at wrecking that might be made, to
save what property he could, and to offer
such assistance as the case demanded. He
was of infinite service, working hard and
helping both to guard and repair in a manner
which earned for him the gratitude and
admiration of all who saw him. The next
day Mr. Fenton, a neighbouring gentleman
and a magistrate, came down to the wreck,
took the whole matter out of the major's
hands, interfered, dictated, bullied, quarrelled,
and finally ended his ill-timed interposition
by sending a challenge to Major Hillas, whom
he had first most grossly insulted. The
Major accepted the challenge; but with
reluctance. With a strange presentiment of
the manner and direction of its ending, he
dressed himself in deep mourning, met his
opponent calmly, received his fire—and fell.

Happily there has been no " duelling to the
death " of late years,—no ultra ferocity— no
inhuman passion. As the Black Death and the
plague are diluted into typhus and influenza,
so is that other morbific condition, the duelling
disease, becoming daily milder in its
form and more modified in its characteristics.
In a short time we may reasonably hope to
see it disappear, under the sanitary influence
of moral light, intellectual ventilation, and
good, thorough social drainage. We know
of no other specifics for this or any other
disease.

Of Duelling in France, we will compile a
few examples in another paper.

In July will be published, price Five Shillings and Six-
pence, neatly bound in cloth,
THE FIFTEENTH VOLUME