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Jail For Students

Jail For Students image
Parent Issue
Day
24
Month
June
Year
1898
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

In England the student's body iscommitted to prison only by the civil authority. In Oxford, it is true, the vice chancellor deals with nndergraduate naughtiness, principally in the form of debt and insubordinaron, for which he may impose a moinentary penalty, but ie does not deprive the defaulter of liberty. There is, or was, a legend that a ccrtain apartment under theold Claren - don building was really the university 'quod, " but for its authenticity it is .rnpossible to vouch. Cambridge has its spinning house for 'emale offenders - not lady students, but [adies who might prove a delusion and a snare to the mere male undergrad. There, if we except the irksome penalty of "gating" (confinement to college or lodgings af ter a stated hour), our academie efforts at incaroeration may be said to end. In Germany, however, the academie dungeon is a very stem fact. The Heidel berg "carcer" is fanious. Everyreader of Mark Twain will reeall his entertaining description of the place and howhe contrived tovisit it, evenunwittingly enlisting as his ruide a "Herr Professor. ' ' His pretext was to see a young friend who had "got" 24 hours and had conveniently arranged the day to suit Mark - for the Germán student convict goes to prison on the first suitable day after conviction and sentence. If Thursday is not convenient, he tells the officer sent to hale him to jail that he will come on Friday or Saturday or Sunday, as the case may be. The officer never doubts his word, and it is never broken. The prison is up three flights of stairs, and is approached by a "zugang" as richly decorated with the art work of convicts as the cell itself. The apartment is not roomy, but bigger than an ordinary prison cell. It has an iron grated window, a small stove, two wooden chairs, two old oak tables and a narrow wooden bedstead. The furniture is profusely omamented with carving, the work of languishing captives, who have placed on record their names, armorial bearings, their crimes and the dates of their imprisonment, together with quaint warnings and denunciations. Walls and ceilings are covered with portraits and legends executed in colored chalk and in soot, the prison candle forming a handy pencil. Some of the inscriptions are pathetic. One runs, "E. Glinicke, f our days for being too eager a spectator of a row. ' ' If f our days were meted out to a mere spectator, what, one wonders, had been the sentence of the participators? It must have been a moving spectacle. Another record (also quoted by Mr. Clemens) has the savor of a great name to it. Of course it is the sou that is ineant, not the father. The legend is, "F. Graf Bismarck, 27-29. II. '74." This Mark Twain interprets as a record of two days' durance vile for Count Bismarck in 1874. Had 1874 been leap year one might have been inclined to interpret the numeral " II" as February. But the "29" makes this difficult. So perhaps the humorist is right. A third specimen is too tragic for comment. It simply says, "R. Diergandt - for love - f our days." Ungenerous successors to that sad chamber have dealt harshly with their forerunners' reputations by ingenious substitution of heinous crimes, so that certain prisoners go down to posterity as having been punished for theft and murder. The prisoner must supply his own bedding and is subject to various charges. On entering he pays about tenpence, and on leaving a similar sum. Every day in prison costs sixpence ; lire and light sixpence extra. The jailer supplies coffee for a trille. Meáis may be ordered from outside. Every prisoner leaves his carte de visite, which is lixed with a multitude of others on the door of the cell. This queer album is glazed to protect the photographs. Academie criminal procedure in Heidelberg is c.urious. If the city pólice apprehend a student, the captive shows his matriculation card. He is then asked for his address and set free, but will hear more of the matter, for the civil authority reports him to the university. The Oxford regulation, by the way, is in certain cases almost identical. In Heidelberg the university court try and pass sentence, the civil power taking no f nrther concern with the offense. The trial is very often conducted in the prisoner' s absence, and he, poorwight, may have forgotten all about his peccadillo until the university constable appears to conduct him to prison. But thither, seeing he may choose his day, he always repairs cheerfully.

Article

Subjects
Ann Arbor Argus
Old News