The Student Life of Germany Part 41

10. No one must accept a challenge of less than half a choppin, or more than four choppins at once. The graduated quant.i.ties of the Comment, are a half, a whole, two, three, and four choppins.

11. The interval between the fore and after drinking of each agreed-upon quant.i.ty must be no more than five minutes (that is, the accepter must drink his quant.i.ty within five minutes after the challenger). And every earlier challenge must be drunk before the latter one.

12. If four choppins are agreed upon, so must the foreswearer or challenger, drink each choppin separately within five minutes of each other; and not till he has drunk these four choppins, must he take a challenge from another person. Also, the challenger must have first drunk his whole contracted quant.i.ty before his antagonist is bound to drink his.

13. He who has a challenge of four choppins on his hands, is not bound to take another challenge till that is drunk out.

14. If a challenge is made, and the challenged excuses himself on the plea that he has already four choppins to drink, the challenger is justified in obliging the challenged to show him each of those four allege choppins as he drinks them.

15. If a challenge is given, and the challenged _nachsturz_, the quant.i.ty, (that is, insists that it shall be doubled,) the challenger is obliged to drink the doubled quant.i.ty.

16. The challenged may not more than double the quant.i.ty proposed by the challenger.

17. The _nachsturz_ become invalid the moment the prescribed quant.i.ty exceeds two choppins, except in a challenge _a faire_.

18. If one pauses during the drinking, leaves a Philistine in the gla.s.s, (that is, if he leaves the bottom of the gla.s.s still covered with beer,) it is to be considered that he has not drunken his quant.i.ty, and he must instantly drink another in the proper manner.

19. The case is the same when an umpire declares that so much beer has been spilt in the drinking as would cover the bottom of the gla.s.s.

20. In every quant.i.ty which is drunk in successive portions, the ---- 18 and 19 shall apply to the party whom the umpire shall have declared to have drunken informally.

21. As well in the fore as the after drinking, the antagonist can select an umpire, who, if he judges that the fore or after quant.i.ty is deficient, must see that it is made complete, and that it is properly drunken.

22. No one is bound to accept a challenge of more than one choppin at a time out of a vessel which will hold more; unless the two drinkers agree differently between themselves.

t.i.tULUS III.

OF ANSCHISS-SAUFEN; OR DEFINING OF WHAT ARE PENAL CASES IN DRINKING.

-- 23. Foxes, whether Cra.s.s or Brand Foxes, may neither _touche_ an honourable Beer-bursch in beer, that is, challenge him to a beer contest; nor, if he be challenged by an honourable Beer-bursch, may he _nachsturz_, or double the quant.i.ty. If one of them does this, then must he be _verdonnert_,[50] or condemned in thunder, to pay for a _viertel_, that is, sixteen choppins. The Foxes have also here equal rights amongst themselves.

24. The degrees of the beer challenges are the following:--A Learned Man stands for a half-choppin; a choppin is a Doctor; two choppins, a Professor; three choppins, an Amtmann; four choppins, a Pope.

25. If any one has given his cerevis, that is, made an a.s.sertion on his beer-word against another, and it cannot be proved who has given his cerevis wrong, so must the two drink out a Learned Man--such cases, however, excepted as are before the Beer-court.

26. No one is bound to accept _ex abrupto_ more than a _Learned Man_; yet must the Foxes accept, _ex abrupto_ every challenged _Doctor_, from an honourable Beer-bursch.

27. The provoker to a beer-challenge must be challenged within five minutes. If he will double on the challenge, he must do it immediately, and according to the fixed gradations of --24.

The settling of the challenge must be completed within five minutes after the challenge is given; and the drink-duel must be immediately contested, if the challenged has not yet an older scandal[51] to defend.

28. Every earlier scandal must take precedence of a later. If any one a.s.serts that he has yet an earlier scandal, he must name the person with whom it depends. The antagonist has a right to name an umpire, who must take care that the scandal is effaced in its regular order, or otherwise the umpire must write the name of the first on the beer-table with the penalty belonging to the offence.

29. The proceeding in fighting out a scandal is as follows:--Each pawkant or combatant appoints a second, of whom the seconder of the challenger, on his cerevis, makes the weapons equal. If the weapons, however, appear unequal to the other second, he can call an umpire, who decides whether they are equal or not. If the umpire declares that the weapons are not equal, he who calls the umpire, has, after the scandal is fought out, to propose the proper penalty for the second who failed to make the weapons equal, according to -- 131, No. 11 (a).

30. At the place of the challenged the weapons are made equal, and the beer-scandal is there fought out.

31. If the weapons are equal, the second of the challenged gives the following commando, "Seize it! put to! loose!"

32. Before this commando, the drinking must not begin; and should it begin, either of the seconds must cry halt, and the weapons must be again made equal. But halt cannot be cried after the word "loose" is given.

33. Both parties must drink instantly on the command being given, whereupon the commanding second, after both have drunk, first declares his judgment, and then the other second either admits this judgment or not. If the latter be the case, so the seconds themselves must drink off a Learned Man, be the quant.i.ty what it may for which they stood seconds, except in the cases stated in ---- 34 and 35.

34. Drinks not one of the two combatants on the given commando, the prescribed quant.i.ty, or bleeds he, or pauses during the drinking, or leaves a Philistine in the gla.s.s; so is he a defaulter, and must, within five minutes, drink once more the prescribed quant.i.ty. If he do this not, he is put under the beer-bann, and the quant.i.ty which he has failed to drink is written on the beer-tablet against him.

35. He is equally a defaulter if he breaks his gla.s.s in setting it down, or overturns it, except, in the last case, he can set it up again before his antagonist is ready.

36. Every one must second the moment he is called upon to do so; yet if one second be a Beer-bursch, he is not obliged to accept a Fox as his opposite second. If any one refuses, without a sufficient ground of excuse, to become a second, he is to pay the penalty of a viertel.

37. The parties concerned in a beer-scandal, must, neither with one another, nor with others, engage in a fresh scandal, neither can others engage them in such. But should this happen, the provoker must immediately revoke, or be condemned to a viertel.

38. The beer-scandal arising between seconds, as in -- 33, is to be fought out in manner following: The second who declared himself first, names his umpire, before whom the scandal is to be fought out, and through whose declaration it is to be concluded.

t.i.tULUS IV.

OF ENGAGEMENT a FAIRE.

-- 39. The engagement _a faire_ is the contract between two to measure themselves in beer drinking.

40. Those who will make an engagement _a faire_, must let this be proclaimed clearly three times by a beer-honourable Beer-bursch; whereupon all who are already concerned with these parties in a beer-scandal, may state their claims, so that they may fight out their scandals with them before this new engagement comes on.

41. Both combatants must, at least, empty one choppin in every five minutes, or be the quant.i.ty greater they must still do the same.

42. Neither of these combatants may accept any thing from a third, nor fore-drink to him; neither may they provoke to a fresh scandal or be provoked to it. Those who do, fall under the penalty of a viertel.

43. They may not officiate in beer-affairs; nor be seconds, witness, nor umpires; nor sit in the Beer-comments, nor convoke, or cause such to be convoked; they may not aid in removing the beer-bann, or drink with him from whom it is to be removed, otherwise they are condemned to a viertel.

44. This Beer-strife is ended by one or the other declaring that he can drink no more, but not by agreement to drink no more. He that yields must quit the kneip within five minutes, or will be condemned to two viertel. Besides this, he is regarded as under the bann for the rest of the day; but during the five minutes that he stays, he is not obliged to accept any fresh challenge.

45. The conclusion of the Beer-strife shall in the same manner as its commencement, be loudly proclaimed by a beer-honourable Beer-bursch.

t.i.tULUS V.

OF THE DECLARATION.

-- 46. If any one has no desire to either fore or after drink, or to concern himself in beer-suits, he must cause this to be declared by a beer-honourable Beer-bursch. If from the beginning he drinks no beer at the kneip, he need not declare himself.

47. He who receives this declaration is bound to proclaim it aloud.

48. The declared may not be challenged in beer. Should this happen, the challenger must instantly revoke, or he will be condemned in a viertel.

If the declarer challenges, he falls under the same penalty.

49. If any one has already drunken beer in the kneip, and then says, without having declared himself, that he goes away, he must not accept a challenge. But if he remains in the kneip five minutes after this declaration of going away, then every one can fore-drink him; and in so far as he does not after-drink according to the regulations, he may be mulct.

50. Each declaration can then only be accepted, when the declarer has drunk out all his contracted quant.i.ties, and all scandals in which he has been engaged have been fought out.