adored,--for Yankee boys have no monopoly of the jack-knife. Where could one find the spiked helmet in the midst of the scholastic quiet and diligence of a German university? It was visible enough in more ways than one. Here was one manifestation. Run down the long list of professors and teachers in the _Anzeiger_, and you would find somewhere in the list the _Fechtmeister_, instructor in fighting, master of the sword exercise, and he was pretty sure to be one of the busiest men in the company. To most German students, a sword, or _Schläger_, was as necessary as pipe or beer-mug; not a slender fencing-foil, with a button on the point, and slight enough to snap with a vigorous thrust, but a stout blade of tempered steel, ground sharp. With these weapons the students perpetrated savageries, almost unrebuked, which struck an American with horror. Duels were of frequent occurrence, taking place sometimes at places and on days regularly set apart for the really bloody work. The fighters were partially protected by a sort of armour, and the wounds inflicted were generally more ghastly than dangerous; though a son of Bismarck was said to have been nearly killed at Bonn a few years before, and there was sometimes serious maiming. Perhaps one may say it was nothing but very rough play, but it was the play of young savages, whose sport was nothing to them without a dash of cruel rage. The practice dates from the time when the Germans wore wolf-skins, and were barbarians roaring in their woods. Perhaps the university authorities found it too inveterate a thing to be done away with; perhaps, too, they felt, thinking as it were under their spiked helmets, that after all it had a value, making the young men cool in danger and accustoming them to weapons. We, after all, cannot say too much. Often our young American students in Germany take to the _Schläger_ as gracefully and naturally as game-cocks to spurs. The most noted duellist at one of the universities that winter was a burly young Westerner, who had things at first all his own way. A still burlier Prussian from Tübingen, however, appeared at last, and so carved our valiant borderer's face, that thereafter with its criss-cross scars it looked like a well-frequented skating-ground. Football, too, in America probably kills and maims more in a year than all the German duels.