Duelling Bull-joes

In Burnished Rows of Steel, we are clearly intended to understand that Britain, and by extension its Canadian colony, is an archaic, class-ridden society. This is encapsulated in the way in which the aristocrats solve their problems: through single combat. The Prince of Wales's decision to call out his father is inspired by 'Generations of breeding,' and when Wolseley rebukes Colonel McNab for the state of the Canadian militia 'The Canadian looked ready to challenge the British officer to a duel then and there'.

This is completely ahistorical: whereas duelling had died out in Britain, it was still common in America. The last fatal Canadian duels were in the 1830s; the last fatal duel in England was fought between two Frenchmen in 1852. In 1859, meanwhile, a sitting US Senator was shot and killed by the Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court. Senator Broderick clearly saw nothing wrong with accepting a challenge; three years later, when an Irish MP challenged Sir Robert Peel to a duel, Peel referred him to the Prime Minster who brought it before the House as a breach of Peel's privilege to speak freely.

Nor was Broderick's murder an isolated occurrence in American high life. TFSmith mentions Daniel Sickles' 'scandalous personal life': what he neglects to mention is that in 1859, while a Congressman, Sickles shot and killed a Washington DC district attorney who was cuckolding him - and that a jury of his peers acquitted him of the crime.

Which of these societies was the backward, violent one?