Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 July 1875 — Dueling in Germany. [ARTICLE]

Dueling in Germany.

The Heidelberg (Germany) correspondent of the Chicago Times, m a letter on the subject of dueling among the students of the university at that place, tells the following: * Pistoling, however, is very rare here. The Americans have the credit of introducing it, and I am told that it has to some extent checked the prevalence of the mania for indiscriminate challenge which formerly existed. The Germans as a general thing steer clear of the Americans, as they fear a challenge in that quarter means pistols and not the butcher business of swords, which the German rather fancies, as it is very rarely fatal and leaves always those marks of honor which the Germans court as badges of bravery. There was a Louisiana lad here last year, whose personal peculiarities and independent ways soon brought the indignation of the Germans to a focus upon him. He was rather quiet in conduct, and a pretext was not easily found to bring him into conflict. His ease and airs, as the Germans chose to consider his ways, were no longer to be borne, however, and a gigantic corps student was delegated to insult him and bring about an encounter. He was beset on the street by the German and ostentatiously compelled either to leave the sidewalk, only wide enough for one person, or had the alternative oi turning around or, if he chose, pushing his enemy aside. He chose the latter, greatly to the confident Teuton’s astonishment. A card was instantly sent to the American and the day named for a meeting, the American selecting pistols, as he was the challenged party. VVhen the meeting came to pass a ludicrous thing happened. The Louisianian, like most Southrons, is a capital shot, and dispensing with seconds he came upon the ground alone with his own pistol case. J ust as the opposition party reached the rendezvous he was practicing at a leaf upon a neighboring post. Three shots were fired in succession and every one struck the leaf! This was too much for the German to face. He instantly apologized, and since that he has been left emphatically alone. Among themselves'the Americans, and South Americans particularly, have an unspeakably blood-thirsty method. A challenge given and accepted, lots are drawn, and whoever loses the choice of weapons takes his pistol and blows his own head oft, this being involved in the cartel. Heidelberg has witnessed two such tragedies within the last five years. This bloody business is sometimes’relieved by fisticuff encounters between English students, the latter being pretty generally excellent boxers, the Germans and Americans rarely doing so well. The son of the President of one of the South American Republics became involved in a difficulty with an Englishman some time since and, a challenge following, fists were selected

as the weapons by the confident Briton, the South American having the reputation of a dead shot and the other the reputation of an expert with the fists. An enormous crowd witnessed the contest. The two were unequal in stature, the Englishman being greatly larger in body and longer than the American. The latter, however, more than compensated for this by skill and alertness. He defended himself with consummate address from the tremendous blows of his antagonist until that warrior had exhausted his offensive capacity, then the lithe body of the other twinkled like a small comet in the melee. He rained down, or up, rather, a succession of blows on the neck, breast, arms and body of his winded . antagonist that in ten minutes reduced him to helplessness, and he was carried from the ring to the sound of a perfect bedlam of congratulatory” hallooes on the part of the multitude, who instinctively sympathized with the apparently weaker party.