Puck, 1879-01-15 · page 5 of 16
Puck — January 15, 1879 — page 5: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This satirical page from *Puck* compares dueling practices across historical periods and cultures. Each panel illustrates a different era's approach to settling disputes through combat: The sequence moves from Japan's ritualistic self-slicing to Ancient Greece's wrestling, Medieval combat, German Renaissance baseball-bat practice, French Renaissance fancy dancing, and various European royal-era duels under Louis XIII-XVI. The satire's point appears to be **mocking the absurdity and persistence of dueling across civilizations**—suggesting that whether ritualistic, athletic, or theatrical, all cultures have found similarly ridiculous ways to resolve honor disputes. Panel 12 shows "civilised dueling" under John Kelly I (unclear reference), implying even modern "civilized" society hasn't truly abandoned this barbaric practice, merely refined its performance. The overall message critiques human irrationality about honor and violence.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
PUCK. THE DUEL. IN ALL OCLIMES AND TIMES. 1. Iw Jaran, Each man slices himself, and the 2, IN Axciext Greece. Most of the fighting was 3, IN THE MipDLE Aces. Injured husbands literally superiority lies in looking the most pleasant over the lingual. The combatants slung Greek roots at each other let daylight through their rivals, The heaviest: man operation, until one succumbed, generally won. 4. Tie or THE GERMAN Renaissance. Baseball 5, Frencit Renatssance, The Duel regarded asa 6. Unper J.ovts XIII. Decidedly pretty, and hay- bat practice. Urigin of the custom of hitting amanaclip, species of fancy dance, ing the immense advantage of being quite harmless, 7._IN Spats. Application of the principles of tc $ per Touts XIV. A rather languid perl 9. bull-fight. They stecred clear of each other. ance, ich salved wounded honor without making h the hoer. 10, UNDER Naro.zon I. This form of combat is still 11, Mopgxn Frencit Styix. ‘This shows thecom- 12, Uber Joun Ketty I, The acme cf civilized preserved on the boards of the Old Bowery. batants at shert range; but asa rule, whea swords are dueling. : chosen, the distance is about thirty-five paces. comicbooks.com