Page:California Inter Pocula.djvu/764

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told E. B, Lundy, a Canadian, that he was a liar. Now it is a small matter, comparatively, to be a liar, but a great one to be told of it. Lundy replied with opprobrious epithets, when Dibble challenged him. The fight came off on the Yuba, about eighteen miles from Nevada; pistols, fifteen paces. Dibble's plan was to draw Lundy's fire and then deliberately to kill him. At the signal Lundy fired, and with an oath Dibble exclaimed, "You have fired too soon!" Dibble's second asked him, "Are you satisfied?" Whereupon Dibble opened his coat and exposed the places where the ball had passed through his body. He was thoroughly satisfied. Pushing aside those who offered to support him he walked about 150 yards and fell, dying in about twenty minutes. If all trials by combat might end as justly as this, one could almost sanction this species of arbitration. The man killed gave the insult and gave the challenge ; it was simply right that he should die. Lundy was arrested and the seconds gave themselves up voluntarily.

John Morrison killed William Leggett at the third fire in 1852. This was a year prolific in pistoling. A. C. Peachy, legislator, and James Blair, goverment officer, figure in the duelling annals of 1852. About the first of March of this same year, a war of words occurred at Sacramento between ex-governor William Smith and David C. Broderick, which, however, was amicably settled. The governor's son, J. Caleb Smith, was not satisfied, and came out in a card in the Democratic State Journal of March 10th, publishing Broderick as a liar, scoundrel, and blackguard. Both were in San Francisco at the time, and it was expected that soon there would be a first-class street fight. Nearly a week passed without a collision, and the crowds began to grow tired of congregating on the corners to witness the show. At length the gladiators appeared near the comer of Front and Sacramento streets. Five hundred people were soon on hand to be again disappointed. During this time