Riker's preaching was better than his practice in respect to dueling. Jacob Bar ker, the famous broker, was indicted for sending a challenge to fight a duel, and he defended himself in proper person before the Recorder. (7 Wheeler's Crim. Cas. 19.) The jury convicted him, and the Recorder, in passing sentence of disqualification from holding office, held the punishment consti tutional, and piously observed: "We feel constrained also to pronounce one word of reprobation on the direful practice of duel ing, to which the defendant himself as sented most fully in his argument. It is a practice most abhorrent to reason, to hu manity, and to religion. By it many of our best citizens have been destroyed — many a worthy family rendered miserable. We are bound by every sanction to lend our aid to extinguish it." This was in 1822. The Recorder had probably gained wisdom from his own disastrous fortune in dueling. In a duel between De Witt Clinton and Colo nel John Swartwout he had been second to Clinton; and in 1803, at Hoboken, near the ground where Hamilton subsequently fell, he had a meeting with Robert Swart wout, brother of the Colonel, was severely wounded in the leg jus't above the ankle, and was confined to the house seven months. He saved his leg from amputation by his obstinacy. It is said that Hamilton inter posed to prevent any prosecution of Riker for this offense, and that he frequently vis ited him at his house in Wall street, near the old Custom House. Riker should have had the poet up for contempt of court in this, for it was a gross libel not only on his marksmanship, but on his courage, because not only was he as bald, but he was "as brave as Julius Caesar," as the poet himself admits in another part of the poem. He distinguished himself in several riots in the city by his bodily courage and presence of mind, and was largely influential in sup pressing the disorder. Dueling, although illegal, was common among lawyers in
Riker's day. Benjamin D. Silliman, in his address at a dinner given him by the New York and Brooklyn Bar, in 1889, said: "Two at least of the learned judges in this city, then on the bench, had been wounded in duels. Three other members of the Bar occur to me at this moment who had been so unfortunate as to kill their adversaries, and others had been engaged in such affairs." It is highly probable that in the days when "the code" prevailed, lawyers were less lavish in severe epithets and allu sion toward one another than now. Mr. Silliman says, "there was much more of stateliness, reserve, and formality than pre vails at this day." The death of Hamilton ended the murderous custom in New York, and the Code of Honor gave place to the Code of Procedure. Of the engraved portraits of the Recorder a reproduction of one accompanies this sketch. It was engraved for a volume pub lished by the City of New York commemo rating the celebration on the opening of the Erie Canal, which is a scarce book. Another interesting engraving is from Browere's bust, a photographic copy of which was sent in 1863 to Halleck, who responded: "The photograph, as you observe, does not do the Recorder justice, for although showing successfully his remarkably fine forehead, it gives us no idea of the play of his fea tures, which, as you doubtless remember, were in their expression, when lit up by a merry thought or an impulse of manly courtesy, as fascinating as his characteristic bow." The memorial volume gives " Mr. Praxiteles Browere " a grand puff in its description of this engraving: "This origi nal bust is an excellent specimen of the new art of making genuine facsimiles from the living subject. . . No painting or modeling can equal it in giving the true form and ex pression of the countenance; willful ignor ance, or something worse, can alone object to this valuable discovery; the multitude of those of the highest rank who have un
