The Prussian Government is trying hard to abolish the sixth
commandment. Not content with ordering its soldiery to kill inoffensive Danes, it dismisses them for want of readiness to kill each other. Three brothers, the Counts of Schmising Rerffen- brock, described as excellent officers, expressed an opinion against duelling as forbidden by the Church to which they belonged under pain of excommunication. Their Colonel asked if they would ac- cept a challenge, and the eldest replied that he would not, whereupon the three were dismissed the service by Royal order avowedly lest they should compromise the regiment. The scandal is the greater because Frederick the Great decided that duelling was contrary to the discipline of the service, and there is a savage order of his ex- tant under which the survivor was to be summarily hanged, and which for years suppressed the practice. Napoleon limited it in the French army, but it has grown under his nephew to a height which actually interferes with regimental efficiency.
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