3-017-031 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

"A Tavern Brawl", by John Gilbert, in the Exhibition of the Society of Painters in Water Colours, 1864. Engraving of a painting. 'Such brawls were common in that ruder and more licentious, though vigorous and glorious, age...the duello was considered a most honourable, equitable, and gentleman-like mode of liquidating debts, proving wrong to be right, and wiping ail stain, however black, from the criminal. Naturally, when hot-blooded young gallants, professional gamesters and bravoes, swaggering swashbucklers, and lawless roisterers of all kinds...met at the taverns...when the sack and canary had freely circulated and women were toasted, and cards were played, then the disputes and difficulties which would be sure to arise would certainly be settled on the spot...by the convenient arbitration of the sword. The arbitration would also, though the question might be most trivial, not unfrequently have, for one at least of the parties to it, a fatal conclusion...And such, doubtless, is the fate of the handsome young fellow in our picture, who now lies weltering in his blood...His young adversary - perhaps a schoolfellow and friend, perhaps a mere tavern acquaintance...looks on, cooled, saddened, even regretful, as he wipes the ensanguined blade'. From "Illustrated London News", 1864.