Two or three days after, we heard that a duel was to take place at Neuenheim, on the opposite side of the Neckar, where the students have a house hired for that purpose. In order to witness the spectacle, we started immediately with two or three students. Along the road were stationed old women, at intervals, as guards, to give notice of the approach of the police, and from these we learned that one duel had already been fought, and they were preparing for the other. The Red Fisherman was busy in an outer room grinding the swords, which are made as sharp as razors. In the large room some forty or fifty students are walking about, while the parties were preparing. This was done by taking off the coat and vest and binding a great thick leather garment on, which reached from the breast to the knees, completely protecting the body. They then put on a leather glove reaching nearly to the shoulder, tied a thick cravat around the throat, and drew on a cap with a large vizor. This done, they were walked about the room a short time, the seconds holding out their arms to strengthen them; their faces all this time betrayed considerable anxiety.
All being ready, the seconds took their stations immediately behind them, each armed with a sword, and gave the words, “Ready—bind your weapons—loose!” They instantly sprang at each other, exchanged two or three blows, when the seconds cried “Halt!” and struck their swords up. Twenty-four rounds of this kind ended the duel, without either being hurt, though the cap of one of them was cut through and his forehead grazed. All their duels do not end so fortunately, however, as the frightful scars on the faces of many of those present testified. It is a gratification to know that but a small portion of the students keep up this barbarous custom. The great body is opposed to it; in Heidelberg, four societies, comprising more than one-half the students, have been formed against it. A strong desire for such a reform seems to prevail, and the custom will probably be totally discontinued in a short time.
This view of the student-life was very interesting to me; it appeared in a much better light than I had been accustomed to view it. Their peculiar customs, except duelling and drinking, of course, may be better tolerated when we consider their effect on the liberty of Germany. It is principally through them that a free spirit is kept alive; they have ever been foremost to rise up for their Fatherland and bravest in its defence. And though many of their customs have so often been held up to ridicule, among no other class can one find warmer, truer, or braver hearts.
[ THE STREETS OF BERLIN.]
MATTHEW WOODS.
[Among the object-lessons which the cities of Europe have for Americans there is none more evident and impressive than the beauty and cleanliness of the streets of many of these municipalities, as compared with those of the land beyond the ocean. Dr. Woods, in his “Rambles of a Physician,” draws a striking picture of the aspect of the principal street of Berlin, which we reproduce for the benefit of our readers.]
To-day I have been riding on tramways through wide, smooth, perfectly clean streets, lined on each side by magnificent houses, mostly with their fronts a complete net-work of graceful carvings. In building here the custom is to use rough stones, and when the house is erected, carve over it the development of some legend, the illustrations of some classic tale, or it may be, the story of the rise and progress of the builder, or the man for whom it is being built; or, perhaps, simply a reproduction in stone of some Pompeiian wall decoration, so that merely a stroll through the streets, or a ride on a car, exhibits sights that I imagine are seldom if ever seen outside of Germany. To write down all worthy of perpetual remembrance and praise, during a walk through its splendid ways, would require much time, and I will therefore only say that amid a profusion of ornamentation, you seldom see anything meaningless or incapable of pointing a moral or adorning a tale.
The street wherein I write, what words could record its splendors! From the happy moment I passed the Royal National Gallery, with its great front covered with the commanding pictures by Cornelius, with background of gold, and crossed the handsome bridge, Schloss Brücke, ornamented with colossal marble statues, full of action and life, that spans the lovely embanked Spree, until now, with a charming park and the Cathedral at my back, the University in front, on my left, in the middle of the street Rauch’s wonderful statue of Frederick the Great, said to be the grandest monument in Europe, and by my side the plain palace of the Emperor, I have been amazed; words cannot describe the splendor of the place. The tops of the houses—cornices—are lined with marble figures larger than life; the pediments are alive with men, women, children, and horses, in high relief; and along the sidewalks are sitting and standing celebrities in stone, whose very pedestals contain enough to employ the admiration for weeks; and yet this is but the approach to the famous street that, beginning at the castle of the Kaiser, ends in the Brandenburg Gate,—I am merely within the Garden of Eden, with long vistas of prospective bliss extending interminably before.
I stand for a few moments in front of Rauch’s stupendous statue of Fritz surrounded by his friends. I use the word “stupendous” not in reference to its size, although it is enormous, but to its effect. It occupies a position in the middle of the street, in front of the plain two-story-and-a-half castle of Kaiser William, now in his ninetieth year, and well. Where is there another avenue in the world that would not be obstructed by this massive group? The Monuments—clustered around a granite pedestal twenty-five feet high, on which is placed an equestrian statue of Frederick the Great—are bronze groups, life size, of the leading generals and statesmen during the Seven Years’ War, standing or mounted on horses as they lived, in animated discussion or thought, forming a glorious aureole around their chief. From where I stand I count nineteen people and four horses, all apparently endowed with immortal life; besides these, on this side (there are three others like it) are cannon, armor, trumpets, helmets, muskets, and trees, which, although of metal, to say of them that they look real would be short of the truth; they exceed reality, at least as we ordinary beings understand that most complimented word. I would venture to say that outside of Prussian Germany models for these magnificent figures could not be found, and that a sculptor producing such would have to create them himself; and yet these are the men of the streets of Frankfort, Weimar, and Berlin, as splendid-looking fellows as the sun ever shone upon,—the very street-sweepers even exhibiting a bearing and dignity commanding respect.