Fœta armis.”
[5]. Forsyth’s “Remarks during an Excursion in Italy,” p. 117.
[6]. In Blaine’s “Cyclopædia of Rural Sports,” art. British Boxing, p. 1219. Longmans 1860.
[7]. An intelligent correspondent of The Sporting Life newspaper, in a series of letters from Germany, written in July, 1863, gives a graphic and blood-tinted picture of “How the Students fight at Heidelberg,” which we would commend to the perusal of the pedagogues of our public schools. We have space for no more than a few fragmentary sentences, but the whole is worth serious thought on the part of those who “teach the ingenuous youth of modern nations.” The writer says:—“I will now describe to you three duels, out of many I have witnessed. The first with the sabre, the other two with schlagers. The first was between the præses, or head man of one of the principal corps, and an officer in the German army. It appears that the officer was at one time a student in the University of Heidelberg, which he quitted to enter the German service. Being quartered at Mannheim, which is close to Heidelberg, he determined to revisit the place, when, for some reason or other unknown to me, he was at once drawn into a duel by the præses of the corps. Allow me to remark, en passant, that an unfortunate student was killed here in a sabre-duel some three or four months ago. A court of inquiry was held, and it was proved by the medical men that the deceased had a remarkably thin skull, which would easily have been fractured by the slightest blow, a fall, or anything of that sort. The result was that all parties were acquitted. But I must return to my sabre-duel. While I was passing through Heidelberg, Old “Puggy” came and told me there would be a sabre-duel early the next morning in the Ingle Suisse, or “Angels’ Meadow,” a small meadow up in the mountains, surrounded by trees, and where all the sabre and pistol duels came off. The “Angels’ Meadow” is about ten minutes walk from the Hirsch Gasse. I suppose it has derived its name from its extreme beauty, but I think the “Devil’s Meadow” would be a more appropriate name, for during the last twenty years no end of fatal duels have taken place there. I took care to be on the ground early, in order to get a view, which I did by mounting a tree. The attendance was very small, as only a limited number are allowed to be present at a duel which is likely to be attended with loss of life. Each man arrived on the ground in a carriage, the student being accompanied by the University doctor, while the officer had a medical friend. While the seconds and umpires were arranging preliminaries, the men were prepared by their respective doctors. The combatants in this case were prepared as follows:—A leather pad to protect the stomach, and a woollen one guarded the lower parts. The sword arm was covered as usual, and a leather apron put on. The whole upper part of the body was left open to attack. The ring was made, the seconds, umpire, and referee took up their respective positions, and the two doctors undoing their cases of instruments, laid them on the ground ready for any emergency. The terms were that the men, if able to scratch, were to fight fifteen minutes, not including rests and stoppages. The umpire of the student (the student being the challenger) now prepared to give the word. Previous to this, a sabre, with schlager handles, was handed to each man. At the word Silentium, you might have heard a pin drop. Gebunden, or the order to bind them, was then given, and a silk handkerchief was tied round the wrist, and fastened to the handle. Gebunden ist was the reply, which means, “bound it is.” Auf de mensur, “go into position and scratch,” Faretz, “ready,” and Los, “go at it,” were called, and at it they went with a will, the guard used being the schlager-guard, and not the English sword exercise. Two or three rounds were fought, when the officer got a fearful wound on the side of the head. The round was of course over, and after a few restoratives had been administered, silence was again called. I may as well state here, once and for all, that this was the only wound the officer got; not so with the student, the wounds he received about the head were of a fearful character, and round after round he came up. The time having expired, the student was carried to his carriage; and, owing to the injuries received, he could not leave his room for several months. When he left his room, he went to the seaside. It is needless for me to say that both of them will carry the marks of this contest to the grave.
“It was on April 10, during vacation, and while there were scarcely any students in Heidelberg, I was sitting at my window, and saw four or five students go towards the Hirsch Gasse; I followed them, and when I arrived there the men were stripping. All being in readiness, they were led out of the house, each arm being carefully supported by the seconds. One of these gentlemen was a student from Munich, the other was a Heidelberger, and the men were placed opposite to each other. Silence was called, and the fight began. The first round occupied considerably less than half a minute, and was finished by the seconds springing in and terminating the round, because one of the schlagers was bent. The second round followed without any result. The combatants are never allowed to be in mensur more than three-quarters of a minute—scarcely ever half a minute: these short rounds are done to rest the arm. In the third round, the Munich man got a cut on the cheek, a Bluticher, or “a blood,” was the cry. The seconds cried “halt!” and “a blood” was scored to the Heidelberg student. The fourth round was a teazer for the Munich man, for he got his nose divided clean in two. No surgeon could have done it better: you could have laid one half back on one cheek, and the other half on the other. After this, the Munich man lost his nerve, and every round he only came up to be receiver-general. At last he got a fearful cut behind the head, dividing an artery. Seeing this, the surgeon immediately stopped the duel, after they had been at it seven minutes (fifteen minutes was the time they had to fight). The wounded man was taken inside the inn, where every necessary attention was paid him which his condition required. I never saw the man again.
“The second schlager duel which I saw was between a Prussian and a Schwabian: both fine men. The morning was a wet one, so they fought in a cart-shed. Having gone into a detailed account of two other duels, it will not be necessary for me to do so in this one; suffice it to say, the surgeon made them fight out the full time (fifteen minutes), and the Prussian got no less than six ugly cuts about the head; fearful gashes they were. He had to keep his bed; and, like most of these duellists, will carry the marks to the grave. As he was led out of the shed, he presented a piteous spectacle; and I only wish some of the detractors of the P.R. could have seen him as I did. These two schlager duels are good average samples.”
The writer adds, after some sensible remarks on these sickening and murderous savageries, “I write thus strongly, because I cannot and will not believe that any one who has the good of his country at heart can decry a well-conducted P.R., as it might be if legalised, or at the least winked at and tolerated.” As to the fatal encounters with knife, rifle, and revolver in the Transatlantic States, they stain almost every sheet of their journalism.
[8]. As it would overload the page with notes to give authorities for these remarks, we may observe that the opinions upon pugilism of the celebrated Mr. Windham, Mr. Harvey Combe, Sir Henry Smith, the Duke of Hamilton, Francis Duke of Bedford, Lord Yarmouth, Mr. Barber Beaumont, Sir John Sinclair, the first Lord Lowther, and other legislators of both Houses, will be found under the periods with which they were contemporary, together with the dicta of justices and judges as occasion called them forth. Anecdotes and extracts from the writings or speeches of Dr. Johnson, Dr. Parr, Dr. Drury, Adam Smith, Sir Walter Scott (in Paul’s Letters to his Kinsfolk), Professor Wilson, Lord Byron, Tom Moore, Sir Robert Peel (the late), and other admirers of the pugilate, are scattered in the places where they appropriately occur.
[9]. On this point the Hon. Grantley Fitzhardinge Berkeley, M.P. for Gloucester, has expressed himself with outspoken candour in “A Letter on the Sports of the People, and their Moral Effects,” which is invaluable as the testimony of one who has shared in the sports and studied the customs of his countrymen. He says:—“Looking at a mere prize-fight got up by the backers and friends of each party, it seems, in its abstract position, to be an useless brutality for two men, having no personal cause of quarrel, to bruise each other for the possession of gold; but, regarding it in another light, as the necessary display of a fair standard of combat, by the rights and regulations of which, throughout the country, all quarrels determined by personal conflict are to be settled, in this light it assumes a character of safe and wholesome public example, which its most strenuous opposers cannot with justice deny. In my mind, then, the prize fight and fair boxing-match are the means of teaching the people to become advocates for honest and gallant decisions in all cases of quarrel, and that the encouragement of the use of the fist is the greatest antidote that can be offered to the revengeful and dastardly resort to the assassin’s knife.
“In freedom from war, in the retirement and blessings of the country, there are no gallant deeds to keep alive the emulation and courage of the English peasant; then I hold that any amusement which tends to the display of personal gallantry, is calculated to be beneficial to the human mind. In spite of all the outcry raised by self-dubbed humane societies, and the abuse to which they often stretch the power vested in them for better purposes; in spite of the sickly preachings of diseased and over-sensitive minds, there is no set of people more angry with the fact of two armies being in presence of each other without fighting, than those whose health or inclinations confine them to the tea-table and fireside, and who would faint at the mere sight of their own blood.