★ Keep up to date with the latest news - subscribe to the Transcribe Bentham newsletter; Find a new page to transcribe in our list of Untranscribed Manuscripts
1827. July 9.
Constitutional Penal Code.
§ Origin of the practice of Duelling and Challenging
Mode of warfare fashionable pastime, opulence,
absolute and relative, gallantry, piety, jurisprudence
– all these distinguishable causes
united their influence in the production of
the effects. In the production and nourishment
of this persuasion, the interest of the shine and
that of the altar concurred, or the effect would
not have been produced.
1. Opulence and mode of warfare – these causes
work in conjunction. War defensive and offensive
being the chief occupation in time of barbarism,
what little handicraft ingenuity was in existence,
exhausted itself in the endeavour to bestow the maximum
of security upon those whose opulence was
such as to enable them to purchase it. The man
who was rich enough to purchase and keep in order
the equivalent of a complete suit of clothes in the modern
fashion, including hat and boots, with the addition
of a mask for the face, all made of iron or steel, or
something between both in a polished state, and like
the shell of a shell-fish so put together as not to be
an obstacle to any of the motions necessary to be
made in a field of battle, together with a set of
horses relaying each other, and every one of them able
to run full speed under the load of a man thus
armed, with the addition of a large metallic shield
and a long pike, occupied in the scale of opulence
a grade not far distant from that occupied at
present by a man who keeps his coach or chariot
with one or two pair of horses. For the carrying
of his shield at a time other than the actual moment
of engagement, the man thus armed had an attendant,
whose grade, though inferior to that of the
biped lobster, was far superior to that of the unarmed small fry that follows.
This
Identifier: | JB/016/082/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 16.
|
|||
---|---|---|---|
1827-07-09 |
3-4 |
||
016 |
penal code |
||
082 |
penal code |
||
001 |
|||
copy/fair copy sheet |
1 |
||
recto |
d2 / e2 |
||
john flowerdew colls |
|||
5889 |
|||