The Student-Life of Germany

by William Howitt

TITULUS III.

OF ANSCHISS-SAUFEN; OR DEFINING OF WHAT ARE PENAL CASES IN DRINKING.

§ 23. Foxes, whether Crass or Brand Foxes, may neither touche an honourable Beer-bursch in beer, that is, challenge him to a beer contest; nor, if he be challenged by an honourable Beer-bursch, may he nachstürz, or double the quantity. If one of them does this, then must he be verdonnert,[^[50]] or condemned in thunder, to pay for a viertel, that is, sixteen choppins. The Foxes have also here equal rights amongst themselves.

24. The degrees of the beer challenges are the following:--A Learned Man stands for a half-choppin; a choppin is a Doctor; two choppins, a Professor; three choppins, an Amtmann; four choppins, a Pope.

25. If any one has given his cerevis, that is, made an assertion on his beer-word against another, and it cannot be proved who has given his cerevis wrong, so must the two drink out a Learned Man--such cases, however, excepted as are before the Beer-court.

26. No one is bound to accept ex abrupto more than a Learned Man; yet must the Foxes accept, ex abrupto every challenged Doctor, from an honourable Beer-bursch.

27. The provoker to a beer-challenge must be challenged within five minutes. If he will double on the challenge, he must do it immediately, and according to the fixed gradations of §24.

The settling of the challenge must be completed within five minutes after the challenge is given; and the drink-duel must be immediately contested, if the challenged has not yet an older scandal[^[51]] to defend.

28. Every earlier scandal must take precedence of a later. If any one asserts that he has yet an earlier scandal, he must name the person with whom it depends. The antagonist has a right to name an umpire, who must take care that the scandal is effaced in its regular order, or otherwise the umpire must write the name of the first on the beer-table with the penalty belonging to the offence.

29. The proceeding in fighting out a scandal is as follows:--Each pawkant or combatant appoints a second, of whom the seconder of the challenger, on his cerevis, makes the weapons equal. If the weapons, however, appear unequal to the other second, he can call an umpire, who decides whether they are equal or not. If the umpire declares that the weapons are not equal, he who calls the umpire, has, after the scandal is fought out, to propose the proper penalty for the second who failed to make the weapons equal, according to § 131, No. 11 (a).

30. At the place of the challenged the weapons are made equal, and the beer-scandal is there fought out.

31. If the weapons are equal, the second of the challenged gives the following commando, "Seize it! put to! loose!"

32. Before this commando, the drinking must not begin; and should it begin, either of the seconds must cry halt, and the weapons must be again made equal. But halt cannot be cried after the word "loose" is given.

33. Both parties must drink instantly on the command being given, whereupon the commanding second, after both have drunk, first declares his judgment, and then the other second either admits this judgment or not. If the latter be the case, so the seconds themselves must drink off a Learned Man, be the quantity what it may for which they stood seconds, except in the cases stated in §§ 34 and 35.

34. Drinks not one of the two combatants on the given commando, the prescribed quantity, or bleeds he, or pauses during the drinking, or leaves a Philistine in the glass; so is he a defaulter, and must, within five minutes, drink once more the prescribed quantity. If he do this not, he is put under the beer-bann, and the quantity which he has failed to drink is written on the beer-tablet against him.

35. He is equally a defaulter if he breaks his glass in setting it down, or overturns it, except, in the last case, he can set it up again before his antagonist is ready.

36. Every one must second the moment he is called upon to do so; yet if one second be a Beer-bursch, he is not obliged to accept a Fox as his opposite second. If any one refuses, without a sufficient ground of excuse, to become a second, he is to pay the penalty of a viertel.

37. The parties concerned in a beer-scandal, must, neither with one another, nor with others, engage in a fresh scandal, neither can others engage them in such. But should this happen, the provoker must immediately revoke, or be condemned to a viertel.

38. The beer-scandal arising between seconds, as in § 33, is to be fought out in manner following: The second who declared himself first, names his umpire, before whom the scandal is to be fought out, and through whose declaration it is to be concluded.