DUELLING SECRETS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20762, 3 January 1931, Page 2 (Supplement)

DUELLING SECRETS.

REVELATIONS IN GERMANY.

WOMEN AT STUDENT FIGHTS. THE " STITCHING-UP " TESTS. Tlie death of a German student that recently occurred in Munich, and the sentence of tlie victor, or " survivor," in a duel, to two years' confinement in a fortress, have shocked the English-speak-ing world. British men and women are horrified, says the Heidelberg correspondent of the Daily Express that young men should be encouraged to inflict violence on one another. Facial disfigurement, ■when executed in cold blood, appears slightly ludicrous to the average Englishman. - Even in Germany it requires the convention, fast disappearing, that a twisted lip or a scarred forehead must exercise a stronger sex appeal than an unmarked countenance. As soon as Teuton maidens show a preference for flawless features duelling will die. Suggestions of brutality from a nation of boxers are treated with surprise in the more die hard German universities. Although in all localities where the Centre (Roman Catholic) Party is in power the practice is forbidden, the regular interclub duels—the mensur, as they are called —are still held in secret. Six o'clock in the morning on Tuesdays and Fridays always found me in my place in the Hirschgasse in Heidleberg, the legendary inn of The Student Prince " story. Healing Process Retarded. The members of the three clubs involved, in their red, green, and blue caps and uniforms, were grouped in separate corners. At one encl of the room a buffet was laden with carafes of specially scented wine, consumed by the duellists after being stitched up. Its special virtue was to poison tho blood and retard the healing up process. The more odious the scar, the more attractive to the young women looking down from a tiny gallery. On a sawdust floor, tho champions of each club fought for about 20 minutes at a time. Victory was either by "points," if both parties stayed the course, or by ono of three technical artery wounds or by the retirement of an opponent through weakness or loss of blood. A student who flinched or drew back his head was warned, and then disqualified. If ho " funked " on three successive occasions he was expelled from his club. The opponents stand rigid, wire guards across nose ahd eves, and heavily padded up to their chin, and slash at each other at given words of command. After each bout is over, fortified with a glass of wine, everyone troops into the stitching-up room, where the patient is seated in a dentist's chair. The stitching up is considered tho greatest test of" all. Not Affairs of Honour. Such is the mensur, the regular interflub duelling, which has nothing to do with affairs of honour, which are conducted privately with more lethal weapons and little bodily protection. The mensur is sport. Not perhaps as British people understand the word, although the same ingredient, honour, is involved. Duelling is supposed to teach the virtues of discipline and self-control. That modern ideas of sport are brighter and more genial is shown by the German universities themselves, where Rugby football and rowing are rapidly ousting the mensur. Young Germany, freed from the pre-war traditions of militarism, has embraced English games in its millions. By tho time the Munich student comes out of his fortress it is expected that the new sport will have displaced the old.