With this much by way of preface we may note that the anti-militaristic tirades of these early years are mainly directed against the needless pomp and pageantry, expense and extravagance of the services. _Punch's_ campaign against duelling is another matter, and here at least he never recanted his detestation of "the law of the pistol." He did not spare even the Duke of Wellington, but made sarcastic reference to his meeting with Lord Winchilsea in 1843, and in his cartoon represented the principals wearing frock-coats and fool's caps. There is an indignant letter to Peel the following March, when that statesman refused to bring in a Bill against duelling, or to reprimand the Irish Attorney-General for challenging in open court the opposing counsel in the O'Connell trial; and when Peel further declined to grant a pension to the widow of Colonel Fawcett, a distinguished officer who lost his life in a duel, this refusal prompted a famous cartoon a fortnight later, accompanied by this vitriolic comment:-- If a statue be ever erected to the living honour or the memory of Sir Robert Peel, the artist will wholly fail in his illustration of the true greatness of the statesman unless he deck the bronze with widow's cap and weepers. In the long and sinuous career of the noble baronet, we know of nothing equal to his denial of a pension to Mrs. Fawcett, and, almost in the same week, his speech in favour of the "laws of honour" as they exist. In one hand does the Prime Minister hold the scales of justice, and in the other a duelling-pistol! _Punch's_ remedy for the evasion of the law was to let the principals go free, but to hang the seconds without hesitation. [Illustration: THE LAW OF THE PISTOL.] [Sidenote: _Punch as Pacifist_]