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— “If you please, I am here to conduct you to prison.”
“Ah,” says the student, “I was not expecting it. What have I been doing?”
“Two weeks ago the public peace had the honor to be disturbed by you.”
“It is true; I had forgotten it. Very well: I have been complained of, tried, and found guilty—is that it?”
“Exactly. You are sentenced to two days’ solitary confinement in the College prison, and I am sent to fetch you.”
STUDENT. “O, I can’t go today.”
OFFICER. “If you please—why?”
STUDENT. “Because I’ve got an engagement.”
OFFICER. “Tomorrow, then, perhaps?”
STUDENT. “No, I am going to the opera, tomorrow.”
OFFICER. “Could you come Friday?”
STUDENT. (Reflectively.) “Let me see—Friday—Friday. I don’t seem to have anything on hand Friday.”
OFFICER. “Then, if you please, I will expect you on Friday.”
STUDENT. “All right, I’ll come around Friday.”
OFFICER. “Thank you. Good day, sir.”
STUDENT. “Good day.”
So on Friday the student goes to the prison of his own accord, and is admitted.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 p............