STUDENTS’ DUELS.

Evening Star, Issue 20291, 27 September 1929, Page 8

STUDENTS’ DUELS.

We had thought that the custom of duelling in German universities was ended long ago. It is a long time since wo had heard of it, and the cult should bo unnecessary in peaceful, regenerate Germany. It appears, however, that it still persists, as an indulgence if not as a cult, and the blood-letting is not confined to universities. A Reichstag committee which has been examining a new ponal code has approved of a clause which prescribes imprisonment for participants in all forms of duelling, including students, and has accepted a Socialist amendment which renders convicted duellists ineligible for official appointments. Not so many years ago duelling was a distinctive institution of the German universities, honoured and encouraged fqi its effect in hardening a nation always kept prepared for war. German student duels, which were merely a part of training and devoid of any special animosity on the part of combatants, could bo very grim affairs —so grim that Mark Twain could find no humour in them when he was a witness of the pastime, though his impressions of the French duels of his day make one of the richest bits of fun. Mark witnessed five duels, one after the other, at Heidelberg. For the purpose of this custom the students wore divided into social corps, distinguished by different colours, who never mingled with each other. It was considered that a person could strike harder in tho duel, and with a more earnest interest, if ho had never been in a condition of comradeship with his antagonist; therefore, comradeship between tho corps was not permitted. Tho duels were held in a room set apart for them on two days in every week during seven or eight months in tho year, and the custom had continued in Germany for 250 years. The opponents were well, even comically, padded to protect them from the most serious injuries, but their faces woro 'exposed, except for the eyes and ears, and the duels, fought with a whirlwind vigour, were only ended when they bad run their fifteen minutes, excluding pauses, or when continuance ol them, in tho surgeons’ opinion, would have been dangerous.. Drawn battles were required to be fought again as soon as the combatants were well of their wounds. The field of conflict was a red one when Mark’s exhibition closed. The faces of ten youths had been gashed in every direction by the keen-edged blades, but it was part of the code that no wincing should be shown by anyone. German savants to their latest years would point to tho scars received 'in these contests with more pride than they felt for their ribands and medals. Tho duel as it was fought by military men, no doubt, to avenge -an affront and not for mere training, was a much more deadly affair. Now duels of all kinds are to be proscribed by the law. German youths must be satisfied to keep themselves physically fit by the bloodless games and sports which, since the war, have achieved an enormous vogue, making one of the best hopes for a future peaceful Germany. It is not even to he expected that, when imprisonment, is imposed as a punishment for duelling, it will bo of that considerate kind which Mark Twain described as existing in tho colleges for other offences. A constable in tho service of the university would inform a student of his sentence to two days’ solitary confinement in tile college prison, and that he had been sent to take him there. The student would plead that tho opera arid other engagements precluded him from going on that, day or perhaps several successive days In' effect ho would choose his own time. But even then the incarceration could be rigorous when it began.