"Kahn says he used the means beneath the dignity of a butcher to get these customers." (Image by Bartolomeo Passarotti.)

Two butchers in the Greenpoint neighborhood of Brooklyn had a feud in the late nineteenth century which began to boil over. How would they settle the dispute? According to an article in the November 10, 1891 Brooklyn Daily Eagle, the rivalry might end in a duel fought with butcher knives. An excerpt:

“Rivalry in the butcher business in Greenpoint has become so desperate that a duel is proposed. Harry Grimes is a butcher employed at 553 Manhattan avenue. Nearly opposite is the butcher shop of Felix Kahn, at 580 Manhattan avenue. Kahn is a Frenchman who has a high temper. Grimes got some of Kahn’s customers recently and Kahn says he used means beneath the dignity of a butcher to get these customers.

Kahn’s assistant and young Grimes would frequently race for the house of a customer and would bang their butcher carts together in the race. Kahn finally boxed Grimes’ ears, and the latter said he could finish Kahn in two rounds, but that he would not stoop to anything so low as a street fight. The entire neighborhood became interested in the war of the rivals and they recently learned that Grimes had challenged Kahn to fight a duel with butcher knives, and that the challenge had been accepted. Neither of the principals would talk of the expected duel, and people were expecting that one or both of the butchers would be carved up.

"There is only one thing left for me, and that is to brand you as a coward and a poltroon." (Image by Annibale Carracci.)

Kahn showed his hand yesterday. He does not want blood. He wants protection, and his French blood having cooled off, he wishes to satisfy his honor in the courts of justice. He appeared before Justice Goetting in his Lee avenue police court to-day, and asked that the strong arm of the law be placed between him and the keen edge of Grimes’ knife. He gave the court the following challenge which he had received:

‘Mr. Kahn:

DEAR SIR–Some time since I indicted a letter to you, but you have not had the manliness or even the politeness enough to respond. What am I to understand by this, to say the least, ungentlemanly conduct. There is only one thing left for me, and that is to brand you as a coward and a poltroon, unworthy to be called a man. But what can be expected from Poland or Baxter street. For fear the letter I sent you miscarried. I will again give you an opportunity to respond, therefore I challenge you to fight me any time within the next week. The sooner the better. The insult and indignity cannot be wiped out too soon and nothing but blood will satisfy me. The failure on your part to answer this, my second communication, will stamp you as a sneak and a coward.

Yours respectfully,

The Butcher Boy Whom You So Cowardly Assaulted’

Kahn told the court that he had no desire to spill the blood of Grimes and that he was so fond of his own blood that he had no desire to lose any of it. Justice Goetting consented to act as his second and directed Clerk Schiepphaus to correspond with the blood thirsty butcher and request him to come to court to arrange for a compromise, which will not include blood letting.”