,
to the effect that after the exchange of three ineffectual shots
between the Hon. William M. Gwin and the Hon. J. W. McCorkle, the
friends of the respective parties, having discovered that _their
principals were fighting under a misapprehension of facts,_ mutually
explained to their respective principals how the misapprehension
had arisen. As a result, Senator Gwin promptly denied the cause
of provocation and Mr. McCorkle withdrew his offensive language
uttered at the race-course, and expressed regret at having used it.

To a layman in these "piping times of peace" it would appear the
more reasonable course to have avoided "a misapprehension of facts"
before even three ineffectual shots.

At the beginning of the great civil conflict, the fortunes of
Senator Gwin were cast with the South, and at its close he became a
citizen of Mexico. Maximilian was then Emperor, and one of his
last official acts was the creation of a Mexican Duke out of the
sometime American Senator. The glittering empire set up by Napoleon
the Third and upheld for a time by French bayonets, was even then,
however, tottering to its fall.

When receiving the Ducal coronet from the Imperial hand the
self-expatriated American statesman might well have inquired,

"But shall we wear these glories for a day,
Or shall they last, and we rejoice in them?"

A few months later, at the behest of our Government, the French
arms were withdrawn, the bubble of Mexican Empire vanished, and
the ill-fated Maximilian had bravely met his tragic end. Thenceforth,
a resident but no longer a citizen of the land that had given
him birth, William M. Gwin, to the end of his life, bore the
high sounding but empty title of "Duke of Sonora."

Frequent as have been the instances in our own country where death
has resulted from duelling, it is believed that in but one has the
survivor incurred the extreme penalty of the law. That one case
occurred in 1820 in Illinois. What was intended merely as a "mock
duel" by their respective friends, was fought with rifles by William
Bennett and Alphonso Stewart in Belleville. It was privately agreed
by the seconds of each that the rifles should be loaded with blank
cartridges. This arrangement was faithfully carried out so far as
the seconds were concerned; but Bennett, the challenging party,
managed to get a bullet into his own gun. The result was the
immediate death of Stewart, and the flight of his antagonist. Upon
hi