It seems that the
student may break a good many of the public laws without having to answer
to the public authorities. His case must come before the University for
trial and punishment. If a policeman catches him in an unlawful act and
proceeds to arrest him, the offender proclaims that he is a student, and
perhaps shows his matriculation card, whereupon the officer asks for his
address, then goes his way, and reports the matter at headquarters. If
the offense is one over which the city has no jurisdiction, the authorities
report the case officially to the University, and give themselves no further
concern about it. The University court send for the student, listen to
the evidence, and pronounce judgment. The punishment usually inflicted
is imprisonment in the University prison. As I understand it, a student's
case is often tried without his being present at all. Then something like
this happens: A constable in the service of the University visits the
lodgings of the said student, knocks, is invited to come in, does so,
and says politely — |
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"If you please,
I am here to conduct you to prison." |
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"Ah,"
says the student, "I was not expecting it. What have I been doing?" |
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"Two weeks
ago the public peace had the honor to be disturbed by you." |
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"It is true;
I had forgotten it. Very well: I have been complained of, tried, and found
guilty — is that it?" |
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"Exactly.
You are sentenced to two days' solitary confinement in the College prison,
and I am sent to fetch you." |
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STUDENT. "O,
I can't go today." |
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OFFICER. "If
you please — why?" |
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STUDENT. "Because
I've got an engagement." |
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OFFICER. "Tomorrow,
then, perhaps?" |
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STUDENT. "No,
I am going to the opera, tomorrow." |
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OFFICER. "Could
you come Friday?" |
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STUDENT. (Reflectively.)
"Let me see — Friday — Friday. I don't seem to have anything on hand
Friday." |
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OFFICER. "Then,
if you please, I will expect you on Friday." |
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STUDENT. "All
right, I'll come around Friday." |
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OFFICER. "Thank
you. Good day, sir." |
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STUDENT. "Good
day." |
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So on Friday the
student goes to the prison of his own accord, and is admitted. |
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It is questionable
if the world's criminal history can show a custom more odd than this.
Nobody knows, now, how it originated. There have always been many noblemen
among the students, and it is presumed that all students are gentlemen;
in the old times it was usual to mar the convenience of such folk as little
as possible; perhaps this indulgent custom owes its origin to this. |
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One day I was listening
to some conversation upon this subject when an American student said that
for some time he had been under sentence for a slight breach of the peace
and had promised the constable that he would presently find an unoccupied
day and betake himself to prison. I asked the young gentleman to do me
the kindness to go to jail as soon as he conveniently could, so that I
might try to get in there and visit him, and see what college captivity
was like. He said he would appoint the very first day he could spare. |
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His confinement
was to endure twenty-four hours. He shortly chose his day, and sent me
word. I started immediately. When I reached the University Place, I saw
two gentlemen talking together, and, as they had portfolios under their
arms, I judged they were tutors or elderly students; so I asked them in
English to show me the college jail. I had learned to take it for granted
that anybody in Germany who knows anything, knows English, so I had stopped
afflicting people with my German. These gentlemen seemed a trifle amused — and
a trifle confused, too — but one of them said he would walk around the
corner with me and show me the place. He asked me why I wanted to get
in there, and I said to see a friend — and for curiosity. He doubted if
I would be admitted, but volunteered to put in a word or two for me with
the custodian. |
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He rang the bell,
a door opened, and we stepped into a paved way and then up into a small
living-room, where we were received by a hearty and good-natured German
woman of fifty. She threw up her hands with a surprised "ACH GOTT,
HERR PROFESSOR!" and exhibited a mighty deference for my new acquaintance.
By the sparkle in her eye I judged she was a good deal amused, too. The
"Herr Professor" talked to her in German, and I understood enough
of it to know that he was bringing very plausible reasons to bear for
admitting me. They were successful. So the Herr Professor received my
earnest thanks and departed. The old dame got her keys, took me up two
or three flights of stairs, unlocked a door, and we stood in the presence
of the criminal. Then she went into a jolly and eager description of all
that had occurred downstairs, and what the Herr Professor had said, and
so forth and so on. Plainly, she regarded it as quite a superior joke
that I had waylaid a Professor and employed him in so odd a service. But
I wouldn't have done it if I had known he was a Professor; therefore my
conscience was not disturbed. |
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Now the dame left
us to ourselves. The cell was not a roomy one; still it was a little larger
than an ordinary prison cell. It had a window of good size, iron-grated;
a small stove; two wooden chairs; two oaken tables, very old and most
elaborately carved with names, mottoes, faces, armorial bearings, etc. — the
work of several generations of imprisoned students; and a narrow wooden
bedstead with a villainous straw mattress, but no sheets, pillows, blankets,
or coverlets — for these the student must furnish at his own cost if he
wants them. There was no carpet, of course. |
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The ceiling was
completely covered with names, dates, and monograms, done with candle-smoke.
The walls were thickly covered with pictures and portraits (in profile),
some done with ink, some with soot, some with a pencil, and some with
red, blue, and green chalks; and whenever an inch or two of space had
remained between the pictures, the captives had written plaintive verses,
or names and dates. I do not think I was ever in a more elaborately frescoed
apartment. |
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Against the wall
hung a placard containing the prison laws. I made a note of one or two
of these. For instance: The prisoner must pay, for the "privilege"
of entering, a sum equivalent to 20 cents of our money; for the privilege
of leaving, when his term had expired, 20 cents; for every day spent in
the prison, 12 cents; for fire and light, 12 cents a day. The jailer furnishes
coffee, mornings, for a small sum; dinners and suppers may be ordered
from outside if the prisoner chooses — and he is allowed to pay for them,
too. |
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Here and there,
on the walls, appeared the names of American students, and in one place
the American arms and motto were displayed in colored chalks. |
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With the help of
my friend I translated many of the inscriptions. |
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Some of them were
cheerful, others the reverse. I will give the reader a few specimens:
|
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"In my tenth
semester (my best one), I am cast here through the complaints of others.
Let those who follow me take warning." |
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"III TAGE
OHNE GRUND ANGEBLICH AUS NEUGIERDE." Which is to say, he had a curiosity
to know what prison life was like; so he made a breach in some law and
got three days for it. It is more than likely that he never had the same
curiosity again. |
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(TRANSLATION.)
"E. Glinicke, four days for being too eager a spectator of a row." |
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"F. Graf Bismarck — 27-29,
II, '74." Which means that Count Bismarck, son of
the great statesman, was a prisoner two days in 1874. |
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(TRANSLATION.)
"R. Diergandt — for Love — 4 days." Many people in this world
have caught it heavier than for the same indiscretion. |
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This one is terse.
I translate: |
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"Four weeks
for MISINTERPRETED GALLANTRY." I wish the sufferer had explained
a little more fully. A four-week term is a rather serious matter. |
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There were many
uncomplimentary references, on the walls, to a certain unpopular dignitary.
One sufferer had got three days for not saluting him. Another had "here
two days slept and three nights lain awake," on account of this same
"Dr. K." In one place was a picture of Dr. K. hanging on a gallows. |
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Here and there,
lonesome prisoners had eased the heavy time by altering the records left
by predecessors. Leaving the name standing, and the date and length of
the captivity, they had erased the description of the misdemeanor, and
written in its place, in staring capitals, "FOR THEFT!" or "FOR
MURDER!" or some other gaudy crime. In one place, all by itself,
stood this blood-curdling word: |
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"Rache!" |
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There was no name
signed, and no date. It was an inscription well calculated to pique curiosity.
One would greatly like to know the nature of the wrong that had been done,
and what sort of vengeance was wanted, and whether the prisoner ever achieved
it or not. But there was no way of finding out these things. |
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Occasionally, a
name was followed simply by the remark, "II days, for disturbing
the peace," and without comment upon the justice or injustice of
the sentence. |
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In one place was
a hilarious picture of a student of the green cap corps with a bottle
of champagne in each hand; and below was the legend: "These make
an evil fate endurable." |
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There were two
prison cells, and neither had space left on walls or ceiling for another
name or portrait or picture. The inside surfaces of the two doors were
completely covered with CARTES DE VISITE of former prisoners, ingeniously
let into the wood and protected from dirt and injury by glass. |
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I very much wanted
one of the sorry old tables which the prisoners had spent so many years
in ornamenting with their pocket-knives, but red tape was in the way.
The custodian could not sell one without an order from a superior; and
that superior would have to get it from HIS superior; and this one would
have to get it from a higher one — and so on up and up until the faculty
should sit on the matter and deliver final judgment. The system was right,
and nobody could find fault with it; but it did not seem justifiable to
bother so many people, so I proceeded no further. It might have cost me
more than I could afford, anyway; for one of those prison tables, which
was at the time in a private museum in Heidelberg, was afterward sold
at auction for two hundred and fifty dollars. It was not worth more than
a dollar, or possibly a dollar and half, before the captive students began
their work on it. Persons who saw it at the auction said it was so curiously
and wonderfully carved that it was worth the money that was paid for it. |
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Among them many
who have tasted the college prison's dreary hospitality was a lively young
fellow from one of the Southern states of America, whose first year's
experience of German university life was rather peculiar. The day he arrived
in Heidelberg he enrolled his name on the college books, and was so elated
with the fact that his dearest hope had found fruition and he was actually
a student of the old and renowned university, that he set to work that
very night to celebrate the event by a grand lark in company with some
other students. In the course of his lark he managed to make a wide breach
in one of the university's most stringent laws. Sequel: before noon, next
day, he was in the college prison — booked for three months. The twelve
long weeks dragged slowly by, and the day of deliverance came at last.
A great crowd of sympathizing fellow-students received him with a rousing
demonstration as he came forth, and of course there was another grand
lark — in the course of which he managed to make a wide breach of the CITY'S
most stringent laws. Sequel: before noon, next day, he was safe in the
city lockup — booked for three months. This second tedious captivity drew
to an end in the course of time, and again a great crowd of sympathizing
fellow students gave him a rousing reception as he came forth; but his
delight in his freedom was so boundless that he could not proceed soberly
and calmly, but must go hopping and skipping and jumping down the sleety
street from sheer excess of joy. Sequel: he slipped and broke his leg,
and actually lay in the hospital during the next three months! |
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When he at last
became a free man again, he said he believed he would hunt up a brisker
seat of learning; the Heidelberg lectures might be good, but the opportunities
of attending them were too rare, the educational process too slow; he
said he had come to Europe with the idea that the acquirement of an education
was only a matter of time, but if he had averaged the Heidelberg system
correctly, it was rather a matter of eternity. |
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