been watching behind their men in the attitude of a wicket-keeper, with their sword-points on the ground, jump in and knock up the duellists’ weapons.  When one duellist is disabled by skin wounds—­there are rarely any others—­or by want of breath, palpitation or the like, the duel is over, and the duellists shake hands.  This description, with some slight modifications, applies to the ordinary Corps Mensuren, which are simply a bloody species of gymnastic exercise.

On one occasion early in the reign the Emperor spoke of the Corps system with great enthusiasm, and especially endorsed the practice of the Mensur.  “I am quite convinced,” he said at Bonn in 1891, three years after his accession,

“that every young man who enters a Corps receives through the spirit which rules in it, and supposing he imbibes the spirit, his true directive in life.  For it is the best education for later life a young man can obtain.  Whoever pokes fun at the German student Corps is ignorant of its true tendency, and I hope that so long as student Corps exist the spirit which is fostered in them, and which inspires strength and courage, will continue, and that for all time the student will joyfully wield the Schlaeger.”

Regarding the Mensur, he went on: 

“Our Mensuren are frequently misunderstood by the public, but that must not let us be deceived.  We who have been Corps students, as I myself was, know better.  As in the Middle Ages through our gymnastic exercises (Turniere) the courage and strength of the man was steeled, so by means of the Corps spirit and Corps life is that measure of firmness acquired which is necessary in later life, and which will continue to exist as long as there are universities in Germany.”

The word for firmness used by the Emperor was Festigkeit, which may also be translated determination, steadiness, fortitude, or resoluteness of character.  It may be that practice of the Mensur, which is held almost weekly, has a lifelong influence on the German student’s character.  It probably enables him to look the adversary in the eye—­look “hard” at him, as the mariners in Mr. A.W.  Jacobs’s delightful tales look at one another when some particularly ingenious lie is being produced.  In a way, moreover, it may be said to correspond to boxing in English universities, schools, and gymnasia.  But, on the whole, the Anglo-Saxon spectator finds it difficult to understand how it can exercise any influence for good on the moral character of a youth, or determine, as the Emperor says it does, a disposition which is cowardly or weak by nature to bravery or strength, save of a momentary and merely physical kind.  The Englishman who has been present at a Mensur is rather inclined to think the atmosphere too much that of a shambles, and the chief result of the practice the cultivation of braggadocio.