e place of home,
companions with whom he has a special bond of intimacy, and a
discipline that carries on his social education; for the etiquette of
these associations is most elaborate and strict. The members of a
corps all say "thou" to each other, and on the _Alte Herren Abende_,
when members of an older generation are entertained by the young ones
of to-day, this practice still obtains, although one man may be a
great minister of State and the other a lad fresh from school. The
laws of a "corps" remind you of the laws made by English schoolboys
for themselves,--they are as solemnly binding, as educational, and as
absurd. If a Vandal meets a Hessian in the street he may not recognise
him, though the Hessian be his brother; but outside the town's
boundary this prohibition is relaxed, for it is not rooted in ill
feeling but in ceremony. One corps will challenge another to meet it
on the duelling ground, just as an English football team will meet
another--in friendly rivalry. All the students' associations except
the theological require their members to fight these duels, which are
really exercises in fencing, and take place on regular days of the
week, just as cricket matches do in England. The men are protected by
goggles and by shields and baskets on various parts of their bodies,
but their faces are exposed, and they get ugly cuts, of which they are
extremely proud. As it is quite impossible that I should have seen
these duels myself, I will quote from a description sent me by an
English friend who was taken to them in Heidelberg by a corps student.
"They take place," he says, "in a large bare room with a plain boarded
floor. There were tables, each to hold ten or twelve persons, on
three sides of the room, and a refreshment counter on the fourth
side, where an elderly woman and one or two girls were serving wine.
The wine was brought to the tables, and the various corps sat at their
special tables, all drinking and smoking. The dressing and undressing
and the sewing up of wounds was done in an adjoining room. When the
combatants were ready they were led in by their seconds, who held up
their arms one on each side. The face and the top of the head were
exposed, but the body, arms and neck were heavily bandaged. The
duellists are placed opposite each other, and the seconds, who also
have swords in their hands, stand one on each side, ready to interfere
and knock up the combatant's sword. They say '_Auf die Mensur_', a