It must be evident from this view which has been presented of the law, that, as an injury may be created by the most trivial incident, so punishment may be inflicted with the most preposterous and unequal retribution. I cannot better illustrate the frivolous foundation upon which an injury may be erected, than by adverting to an occurrence of very recent date, and of sufficient notoriety in the Fashionable World. Two men of Fashion, incensed against each other by an accidental quarrel between their respective dogs, dropped, in their warmth, certain expressions which rendered them amenable to the bloody code: duel was declared indispensable: and in less than twelve hours, one of the two was dispatched into eternity, and the other narrowly escaped the same fate. { 42}
The inequality of the retribution is, indeed, an inevitable consequence of that article of the code which compels men of Fashion, without distinction, to decide their differences by fighting a duel. It results from this promiscuous injunction, that the peaceable man must fight the quarrelsome; that the heir of a noble family must meet the ruined esquire; and that the man who has never drawn a trigger in his life, must encounter the Fashionable ruffian, who has all his life been doing little else. This inequality is further manifest, from the different circumstances and connexions of life under which the combatants may be found. The son of many hopes may be matched against the worthless prodigal; the virtuous parent against the unprincipled seducer; and the man of industry, usefulness, and beneficence, against the miscreant who only lives to pamper his lusts, and to corrupt his fellow-creatures. Nothing has here been said of the indiscriminate manner in which judgment is executed. The innocent and the guilty must both be involved in the same awful contingency; each must put his life to hazard: and the probability is, that, if one of the two should fall, it will be the man whose conduct least entitled him to punishment, and whose life was most worth preserving.
I forbear to enter further into the system of Fashionable government, or to meddle with the inferior points of legislation. What has been said of the Law of Honour, will apply, with little variation, to every other institution of minor concern. To facilitate polite intercourse, and to exclude, as much as may be, duties to God and inferiors, is a considerable object in every regulation; and it is but justice to this people to say, that, in this respect, they are at once consistent and successful.