The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1895-07-10
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STUDENT DUELS OF TO-DAY.

Still Scratching One Another as in Earlier
ears--Hcidelberg's University Prison
A Reminder of Bismarck's Youthful
Days-The Hirschgasse Of the Fights.
TFrom the Philadelphia Evening Telegraph.
Heidelberg, June 1O.-The two most
distinctive institutions in Heidelberg,
perhaps, are the university prison and
the duelling which the students con-
stantly carry on. The prison is use
less inheritance from an Anticipated
past, and the duelling, not to say any
thing more severe about 1t, is against
the law, and indeed against a great
many laws--those of the university it,
self, those of Baden, and those of the
empire. Yet there are apparently no
other two things which the people of
the town try harder to maintain, or
which, however sorry we may be to rec
a drawing card for strangers. In what
this peculiar attraction may consist we
are unable to say, and 1t surely is not to
be reekoned any more seriously than
passing love for the curious.
In times back every university in Ger
many had Its prison, and many still
have Each to-day has It's own judge
and constables and various laws which
the students are supposed to be obliged
to observe. Earlier each university
was a kind of little state within state,
with very extensive independent judi
cial powers: but since the enactment of
an imperial law regarding this subject
in 1878, important changes have taken
place. However there are various
classes Of disciplinary offences, such as
drunkenness, duelling, Insult Of fell
low student, unseemly uproar on the
public streets or on the university
premises, &c, which the university au-
thorities themselves still punish. The
sentHnce may be expulsion or imprison~
ment in the university career for a
term OF days, or both. This prison
system fiourished at Heidelberg In a
more pronounced form than anywhere
else At Gottingen the visitor may be
shown an old door, which earlier stood
in the prison Of that university, upon
! to Won Bismarck, a bit of workmanship
ascribed to the old chancellor when he
| was sowing his wild boyhood oats.
| The career at Heidelberg is in the
| main building in which most of the lee
| lures are given. 1t is shown to visitors,
| when there are no inmates, with great
zeal by woman who scrubs the floors,
and who is entitled to the fees she can
| collect from sight-seers as an extra per-
| quisite. The prison consists of as
many as five different rooms. and they
all, together with the stairway which
| ascends to them are ornamented be-
| yond anything which 1t is possible to
| find, perhaps, in any other prison in the
wide world. In fact it is the curious
| decoration of the rooms which makes
them so interesting to beholders. Each
| inmate, within the course of the last
eighty years, during which this particu-
| lar prison has existed, has felt it his
duty to vie with every pervious inmate
| in the ornamentation Of the walls.
| They are painted in red and black, the
ceilings are marked with fantastic fres-
| Goes from candle smoke, and inscrip-
lions, appropriate and inappropriate,
are exhibited in bold type everywhere.
1t is not only no discredit, apparently,
but a very considerable honor. to have
been penned up In this place; and any
| one who has an acquaintance with the
| German nobility may see their names
| here literally represented. Various
| Americans seem to have been impris-
oned also at different times, though
they probably did not belong to the no
| bi1ity.
| The boys when they are sentenced to
prison come in great state. They bring
| their servants with them, if they have
any. They drive up in carriages, with
mattresses and all the necessary bed
| clothing, so that their stay may be
| pleasant as well as profitable. They
are also we'll equipped with paint and
all the suitable utensils for mural deco
ration.
The duels at Heidelberg are very IA
nous. There is perhaps no university
in Germany at which duelling is not
practiced, but here it is regarded al
most as religious duty. The sons of
the rich congregate at Heidelberg, and
| they are the people who are especially
addicted to this form of student pas
| time in Germany 1t is not an exagger-
alton to say that between twenty and