Today -100: December 21, 1910: Of the need for speed, blue suit duels, and the British elections

NYC is considering raising the automobile speed limit from its current 8 mph to 15 or 20, depending on the width of the street.

In Nagyvarad, Hungary, the president of the local union of solicitors attended a ball given by local law students. He was wearing a light blue summer suit and brown boots, which for some reason was taken as a grave insult. The law students called a meeting to debate the suit, things turned nasty, 122 deadly insults were made, which will result in 122 duels. Which are to be fought with swords. (Were 122 duels actually fought? Who knows: there was no follow-up story).

The British general election (voting took place from the 3rd to the 19th, the last multi-day election in Britain), which was supposed to break the parliamentary deadlock created by the previous general election 11 months before, didn’t. The Liberals dropped from 275 seats to 272, the Tories won 272 seats, down by 1 (who counts as what is open to debate for some, so you may see different figures). Labour gained 2 to win 42 seats, despite the fact that having to fighting two elections in one year seriously strained their finances. The Irish Nationalists won 84 seats, up 2. Turnout was 81%, down 5.5% from January. Asquith and the Liberals will continue to rule, in conjunction with Labour and the Nats.