Heroes Vexed

To Prussian generals of the Blood-and-Iron school, the possession of disfiguring facial scars by youthful officers was regarded as an essential for promotion.

Many a young German cadet rubbed dirt into his small dueling wounds that they might grow the greater. Many a major's pride was the livid white scar running from lip to ear which marks the man tough enough to endure the severing and sewing on of a whole cheek.

Last week such scarred and toughened warriors cursed every stick and stone of the German Reichsgebaude "and every pulpy numskull in it, sir!"

These scar-decked swashbuckling heroes cursed because the Reichstag deputies had just signed a bill providing that German officers caught dueling in future, "except upon the most intolerable provocation," will be dishonorably discharged.