punishment was administered, the commanders were in danger from the revenge of the culprit or his friends. The disbanded soldiers quarrelled amongst each other, as they did with their officers, and sometimes there were as many as a hundred parties in one place engaged in duelling. The most wanton death-blows were dealt, and murders perpetrated, such as have never been heard of since the beginning of Christianity. When the banner was unfurled, it was customary for the combatants to join hands and vow to fight out their quarrel when their term of service was ended, and till then to live together in brotherly love. When this disbanding took place, the most disorderly of the soldiers combined together and began an "armour cleaning" of those comrades to whom, during service, the officers had shown favour; that is to say, they robbed them of all, deprived them of their clothes, beat and almost killed them. All these crimes were tolerated, and the powerless commander-in-chief looked passively on these proceedings as a mere custom of war. During the Hungarian campaigns the soldiers adopted the habit of only remaining by their banners during the summer months; they found their reckoning in serving a short time, and mutinying if more was desired of them; for during the autumn and winter they went with two, three, or more boys as "_Gartbrüder_"[10] through the country, a fearful plague to the farmers in eastern Germany. In the frontier countries, Silesia, Austria, Bohemia, and Styria, it was even commanded by the sovereigns to pay a farthing to every soldier who was roving about as "_Gartbrüder_." Thus by their refractory conduct they daily obtained a gulden or more; their boys pilfered where they could, and were notorious poachers. Wallhausen, whilst making other energetic complaints, reckons that the support of a standing army would cost less to the princes and states, and secure greater success against the enemy, than this old bad system.