The law of the land is better able to vindicate really outraged character and honour than may be imagined by many foolish hot-blooded persons, who give or accept "hostile messages." It is armed with ample powers of compensation and punishment, as may easily be ascertained by those who can satisfy it that they have been the victims of deliberate and wanton insult and injury. Little more than a year ago, one gentleman thought proper to write to some naval and military friends of another most offensive imputations upon his honour. When apprised of this, he instantly wrote to demand that his traducer should either prove the truth of his assertion, or unequivocally retract and apologise for them. Both alternatives were very contemptuously refused, on which the injured party brought an action for libel against his traducer; who, unable to justify, and unwilling to apologise, allowed the case to go before a jury. On their learning the true nature of the affair, and being reminded that they were appealed to as a jury of twelve gentlemen, to vindicate the honour of an unoffending gentleman, they gave such heavy damages (£500) as soon brought his infuriate opponent to his senses, and elicited an unequivocal retractation, and as ample an apology as could have been desired. A few instances of this kind would soon satisfy the most sceptical of the potency of the law in cases too often deemed beyond its reach, and of the effective reality of its redress in cases of wounded honour. Who could lightly esteem being solemnly and publicly branded by its _fiat_ as a liar and a slanderer--its blighting sentence remaining permanently on record? He who would regard such a circumstance with indifference surely is not worth shooting, or running the risk of being shot by, or of being hanged or transported for shooting or attempting to shoot! If a person of distinguished station or character receive an insult or an injury of such a nature, as not to admit of being treated with silent contempt, it becomes his duty to society to set an example of magnanimous reliance on the protection of the laws of his country, and pious reverence for the laws of God. Against one thing, however, every one should be constantly on his guard--the entertaining and cherishing that false overweening estimate of personal dignity and importance, which predisposes too many to take offence, and then hurry to revenge it.