Mr Justice Patteson, in trying the seconds for murder, in the case of the fatal duel between Dr Hennis and Sir John Jeffcott, who shot the former, thus plainly put the matter to the jury: "Whether duelling ought to be tolerated in this land, I say nothing. It is no question for any _jury_ at all. The law of the land does not tolerate it. I repeat that, if you are satisfied on this evidence, that the three gentlemen went out to Haddon, knowing that Sir John Jeffcott and Dr Hennis were about to fight a duel there, without heat or irritation--but deliberately aiding and assisting the affair on a point of honour, after vainly endeavouring to effect an amicable arrangement--I cannot tell you, in point of law, that it is anything short of murder." The jury at once acquitted the prisoners![45] In the year 1838, a young man named Mirfin was shot in a duel at Wimbledon, by a young man named Elliott, twenty-five years of age, under deplorable and aggravated circumstances. The former had been a linendraper in Tottenham Court Road; and, together with the latter, seemed to have led the dissolute life, for some time, of men about town. The duel arose out of a quarrel which had occurred in a certain indecent scene of infamy near Piccadilly! Two young men named Young and Webber, respectively only twenty-four and twenty-six years of age, were tried for the wilful murder of Mirfin. They had not acted as seconds of the survivor, but had accompanied him and his second to the scene of action. The chief witness was a surgeon, who detailed with a deadly simplicity and matter-of-fact air the whole particulars of the duel, at which he was present; and produced such an effect on the jury that, on delivering their verdict, they expressed the "horror" with which they had heard his evidence and regarded his conduct, and their regret that he had not himself been put upon his trial for murder. The reader shall have an opportunity of judging for himself on the subject, from a portion of the evidence given by this person.[46]