As a rule, guests might not pledge persons who were present, unless it were a sweetheart, and that toast must be drunk “_ad unguem_”[193]—that is to say, in a bumper—the drinkers afterwards reversing their goblets and ringing them on the thumb-nail, to show that not a drop was left therein. This has been a common drinking custom in several countries. Toasts were drunk in various ways: sometimes one man drank from two glasses at once; at others, when virtuous young ladies sat by the side of respectable young men, they were allowed to drink simultaneously from the same goblet, and it was deplored that such a mode of drinking could not become more general, on account of the wild behaviour of the youth of the period.[194] Regular penalties were inflicted for sneezing and coughing into the goblets, and for certain other offences against decency and propriety, which, although they seem to have been everyday occurrences at those carousals, are unfit to be spoken of in genteel society. When newcomers arrived, the goblet was offered to them, with sundry compliments and orations, and to refuse to drink was a mortal offence, usually followed by a bloody encounter. When a guest found it difficult to keep pace with the company, or could not empty his goblet at a draught, he might avail himself of the aid of any _young_ lady who sat by his side, but _old_ ladies were not allowed to render assistance under such circumstances, for they were too fond of their liquor themselves.[195] When men became riotous, gentle means were first to be employed to quiet them; if they still persisted, warnings followed; and should they then remain contumacious, they were to be well thrashed and sent home “as cheaply as possible.” Table and window breaking were severely punished, and certain acts of indecency, if practised before ladies, were to be resented by seizing the offender and pitching him neck-and-crop into the street.[196] Should the reader be desirous of studying this remarkable code[197] (whatever view he may take of its authenticity as a serious production), he will find it composed in mediæval German, interspersed with Latin and Greek phrases, as though it had been collated by some learned ecclesiastic, which is more than probable—that is to say, by some drunken hanger-on at a monastery; and he will see how the German youth of bygone days studied as “vini et cerevisiæ candidatus,” and eventually graduated in the courts of Bacchus. But if he imagines that the picture is overdrawn, we should recommend him to consult the historical records, and he will find that no language can adequately portray the state of morals in Germany in those days, at least so far as drunkenness was concerned.[198]