their outstretched sword-arm in the pauses of the combat caused by the duellists getting out of breath; consequently, an undersized student is usually chosen for this considerate office.  The heads and faces of the duellists are swathed in bandages—­no small incentive to perspiration, the vital parts of their bodies are well protected against a fatal prick or blow, and the pricks or slashes must be delivered with the hand and wrist raised head-high above the shoulder.  It is considered disgraceful to move the head, to shrink in the smallest degree before the adversary, or even to show feeling when the medical student who acts as surgeon in an adjoining room staunches the flow of blood or sews up the scars caused by the swords.  The duel of a more serious kind—­that with pistols or the French rapier, or with the bare-pointed sabre and unprotected bodies—­is punishable by law, and is growing rarer each year.

Take a sabre duel—­“heavy sabre duel” is the German name for it—­arising out of a quarrel in a cafe or beer-house, and in which one of the opponents may be a foreigner affiliated to some Corps or Burschenschaft.  Cards are exchanged, and the challenger chooses a second whom he sends to the opponent.  The latter, if he accepts the challenge, also appoints a second; the seconds then meet and arrange for the holding of a court of honour.  The court will probably consist of old Corps students—­lawyer, a doctor, and two or three other members of the Corps or Burschenschaft.  The court summons the opponents before it and hears their account of the quarrel; the seconds produce evidence, for example the bills at the cafe or beer-hall, showing how much liquor has been consumed; also as to age, marriage or otherwise, and so on.  Then the court decides whether there shall be a duel, or not, and if so, in what form it shall be fought.

The duel may be fixed to take place at any time within six months, and meanwhile the opponents industriously practise.  The scene of the duel is usually the back room of some beer-hall, with locked doors between the duellists and the police.  The latter know very well what is going on, but shut their eyes to it.  The opponents take their places at about a yard and a half distance from advanced foot to advanced foot, and a chalk line is drawn between them.  Close behind each opponent is his second with outstretched sword, ready to knock up the duellists’ weapons in case of too dangerous an impetuosity in the onset.  The umpire (Unparteiischer), unarmed, stands a little distance from the duellists.  The latter are naked to the waist, but wear a leather apron like that of a drayman, covering the lower half of the chest, and another piece of leather, like a stock, protecting their necks and jugular veins.  The duel may last a couple of hours, and any number of rounds up to as many as two hundred may be fought.  The rounds consist of three or four blows, and last about twenty seconds each, when the seconds, who have