A Tramp's Wallet Part 20

Pere Panpan drooped and drooped. The cord of his gymnasium swung uselessly above his head; he tottered no more along the corridors of the hospital. He had ceased to be the pet of the medical profession. His malady was obstinate and impertinent; it could neither be explained nor driven away; and as all the deep theories propounded respecting it, or carried into practical operation for its removal, proved to be mere elaborate fancies, or useless experiments, the medical profession-happily for Panpan-retired from the field in disgust.

"I do believe it was the b.u.t.ton!" exclaimed Panpan, one Sunday afternoon, with a strange light gleaming in his eyes. Madame replied only with a sob. "You have seen many of them?" he abruptly demanded of me.

"Of what?"

"b.u.t.tons."

"There are a great many of them made in England," I replied. Where were we wandering?

Panpan took my hand in his, and, with a gentle pressure that went to my very heart, exclaimed: "I do believe it was the bra.s.s b.u.t.ton after all.

I hope to G.o.d it was not an English b.u.t.ton!"

I can't say whether it was or not. But, as to poor Pere Panpan, we buried him at Bicetre.

CHAPTER XXVII.

SOME GERMAN SUNDAYS.

Of how Sunday is really spent by the labouring cla.s.ses in some towns in Germany, I claim, as an English workman who has worked and played on German ground, some right to speak. It is possible that I may relate matters which some do not suspect, and concerning which others have already made up their minds; but, as I shall tell nothing but truths, I trust I may not very much disconcert the former, nor put the latter completely out of patience; nor offend anybody.

To begin with Hamburg. I spent seven months in this free, commercial port. I came into Hamburg on a Sunday morning; and, although everything was new and strange to me, and a number of things pa.s.sed before my eyes which could never be seen in decorous London, yet there were unmistakable signs of Sunday in them all-only it was not the Sunday to which I had been born and bred. The shops were closed, and there was stillness in the houses, if not in the streets. I pa.s.sed by the fore-courted entrance to a theatre, and its doors were shut; but one could easily guess by the bills at the door-posts that it offered histrionic entertainment for the evening. Wandering through some beautifully-wooded walks which encircle the city, I met many promenaders, trim, well-dressed, and chatty; and when I turned back into the city, was once or twice absorbed in the streams of people which flowed from the church doors. One thing was certain; the people were not at work. It struck me at once; for I met them at every turn in their clean faces and spruce clothes-the veritable mechanic may be known in every country-and there was the happy look and the lounging gait in all, which told that they had laid down their implements of trade for that day, and were thoroughly at leisure. When I came to be domiciled and fairly at work, I learned to discriminate more clearly between many apparently irreconcilable things; and will here roughly set down what we did, or did not, on Sundays, in the emporium and outlet of Northern Germany; which, it will be well to remember, is thoroughly Lutheran-Protestant in its faith.

There was a church not far from our workshop-I think the Jacobi-Kirche-which had the sweetest set of Dutch bells that ever rung to measure, and these played at six o'clock in the morning on every day in the week; but, to our minds, they never played so beautiful a melody as when they woke us on the Sunday morning, to the delightful consciousness of being able to listen to them awhile, through the drowsy medium of our upper feather bed. Once fairly roused, properly attired, and breakfasted with the Herr, what did we next? Sometimes we worked till mid-day, but that was a rarity; for our ordinary day's labour was thirteen hours, with scarcely a blink of rest at meal-times, and often we had not stirred from the house during the whole week, but had worn out the monotonous hours between bed and workboard. When, however, orders pressed, we did work; but this again was no new thing to me, for I had done the same thing in London; had toiled deep into the Sat.u.r.day night, and had been up again to work on the Sunday morning, because some gentleman or lady who was engaged, I dare say, in their morning devotions, could not bide the ordinary time for their trinkets. If we did work, which as I have said was a rarity, our ordinary pay of two schillinge, scarcely twopence per hour, was increased to three.

Sometimes we went to church; and we always found a goodly congregation there. The service was in good honest German; and the preacher-quaintly conspicuous to an English eye by his velvet skull-cap, and a wonderfully plaited frill which bristled round his neck-was always earnest and impressive, and often eloquent. Among other religious services, I well remember that of the Busse and Bet-Tag (day of Repentance and Prayer); the anniversary of the battle of Leipsic; and a remarkable sermon preached on St. Michael's Day, and of which I bought a copy after the service of a poor widow who stood at the church door. If the weather were fine, we strolled along the banks of the beautiful Alster, or made short excursions into the country; and here again all was repose, for I recollect having once had pointed out to me as a matter of wonder a woman who was toiling in the field. Or, if the weather were stormy and wet, we stayed in the workshop and read, or made drawings, or worked in the manufacture of some favourite tool. Often, again, we had especial duties to perform on that day in the shape of visiting some sick craftsman in the hospital, to pay him his weekly allowance, or convey him a book, or some little creature comforts. The Sunday morning was an authorised visiting time, and the hospital was usually crowded-too crowded with patients, as we thought-and each had his cl.u.s.ter of cheering friends. Or we paid friendly visits to fellow workmen; smoked quiet pipes, and told travellers' stories; or listened to the uncertain essays of our brethren of the Mannergesangverein as they practised their part music. There was one piece of business transacted on the Sunday morning which may have been sinful, although we did not view it in that light. We paid our tailors' bills on the Sunday morning if we had the money, or ordered new garments if we had credit; and I believe it is a practice more generally prevalent even in England than gentlefolks are apt to imagine.

We dined with the Herr at noon, and at one o'clock were at liberty for the day. I have seen a Danish harvest-home on a Sunday afternoon in the pretty village of Altona; watching its merry mummers as they pa.s.sed by the old church-yard wall, where Klopstock lies buried. I have attended a funeral as a real mourner, followed by the mourning professionals in the theatrical trappings with which the custom of Hamburg usually adorns them. If we bent our steps, as we sometimes did, through the Altona gate to Hamburger Berg, we came upon a scene of hubbub and animation which was something between Clare Market on Sat.u.r.day night, and High Street, Greenwich, at fair time. Stalls, booths, and baskets lined the way; flowers, fruit, and pastry disputed possession of the side-paths with sugar-plums, sticks and tobacco-pipes; and, although Franconi's Circus was not open yet, it gave every promise of being so; and the air already rang with voices of showmen, and the clangour of instruments. In the Summer there were gay boats on the Alster, and nautical holiday-makers were busy with oar and sail; while, in the Winter months, if the ice held well, there was no end of skating and sledging; and then we had a pleasant winter-garden near the Tivoli, with orange-trees in tubs, the mould so covered over as to form extemporary tables, and the green leaves and pale fruit s.h.i.+ning above our heads. At the upper end was a conservatory of choice plants, which was more particularly appropriated to the ladies and children. The cafe pavilions on the Alster steamed odoriferously; punch and hot coffee were in the ascendant; and there were more cigars smoked in an afternoon on the Jungfern Stieg (the Maiden's Walk) than would have stored the cases of a London suburban tobacconist.

These may, perhaps, be reckoned mere idlings, but there were occasionally official doings on the Sunday, which might have been national, if Hamburg had been a nation, and which no doubt were eminently popular. Two such, I remember; one a grand review of the Burger Militar; the other the public confirmation of the apprentices and others, and the conscription of the youth of the city. The former was a trying affair. Some twelve thousand citizen-soldiers had to turn out, fully rigged and equipped, by early dawn, ready for any amount of drill and evolution. Many were the stories-more witty than generous-of the whereabout of their uniforms and accoutrements; as to their being deposited in Lombardian hands, or wholly used up since the last grand field-day some three years before. Such furbis.h.i.+ng as there was of bra.s.s ornaments and metal-b.u.t.tons; such an oiling and sand-papering of brown muskets, and such a rearrangement of blue tunics which, after all, did not match in colour, length, nor appointments! Fortunately our warriors did not burn powder; and there was enough of military ardour among them to carry them through the fatigue of the day. It required a great deal; for, like other military bodies of a late day, the commissariat department totally broke down, and citizens were kept hungering and thirsting upon the blank, dusty plain, within half-a-mile of stored-up abundance. The confirmation of the apprentices and the conscription of the young men was a more serious matter. It took place in the great square, where a stage and pavilion were erected; all the authority of the senate, and the services of the church were united to render it solemn and impressive. It was a source of deep interest to many of my own acquaintances, more especially to the young cooper who worked underground at our house, and who, just released from his apprentices.h.i.+p, had the good or ill fortune to be drawn for the next year's levy.

There was one inst.i.tution, not precisely of Hamburg, but at the very doors of it, which exercised considerable influence upon its habits and morals, and that of no beneficial kind. This was the Danish State Lottery, the office of which was at Altona, where the prizes were periodically drawn upon Sunday. The Hamburgers were supposed to receive certain pecuniary advantages from this lottery in the shape of benefits bestowed upon the Waisenkinder of the town, who, like our own blue-coat boys of the old time, were the drawers of the numbers; but the advantages were very questionable, seeing that the bulk of speculators were the Hamburgers themselves, and the great prizes of the undertaking went to swell the Danish Royal Treasury. Portions of shares could be purchased for as low a sum as fourpence, and the Hamburg Senate, in self-defence, and with a great show of propriety, prohibited the traffic of them among servants and apprentices: which prohibition pa.s.sed, of course, for next to nothing, seeing that the temptation was very strong, and the injunction very weak. It was a curious sight to witness the crowd upon the occasion of a public drawing in the quaint old square of Altona; a pebble-dotted s.p.a.ce with a dark box in the centre, not unlike the bas.e.m.e.nt of a gallows. On this stood the wheel, bright in colours and gold, and by its side two orphan boys in school-costume, who officiated at the ceremony. One boy turned the wheel, the other drew the numbers, and called them aloud as he held them before the spectators; while the blast of a trumpet heralded the announcement. What feverish anxiety, what restless cupidity might be fostering among that crowd no man could calculate, and certainly, to my mind, there was no worse thing done on the Sunday in all Hamburg than this exhibition of legalised gambling.

Of course the theatres were open, and we of the working people were not unfrequent visitors there. But let us thoroughly understand the nature of a German theatrical entertainment. There is rarely more than one piece, and the whole performance is usually included in the period of two hours-from seven till nine. The parterre, or pit, is a mere promenade or standing place, in which the few seats are let at a higher price than the rest of the s.p.a.ce. The whole of the arrangements are conducted with the utmost decorum: so much so, that they would probably disappoint some people who look upon the shouting, drovers' whistling, and "hooroar" and hissing of some of our theatres as part of the legitimate drama. On the Christmas day, when I had the option of getting gloriously fuddled with a select party of English friends, or of entertaining myself in some less orthodox way, I preferred to witness the opera of "Norma" at the Stadt Theatre, and think I was the better for the choice. "Hamlet" was the source of another Sunday evening's gratification (an anniversary play of the Hamburgers, and intensely popular with the Danes), although with unpardonable barbarity the German censors entirely blotted out the gravediggers, and never buried the hapless, "sweet Ophelia." In the gallery of the Imperial Opera House at Vienna, liveried servants hand sweetmeats, ices, and coffee about between the acts; and although the Hamburger theatricals have not yet reached this stage of refinement, there is much in the shape of social convenience in their arrangement, which even we might copy.

Sometimes, we workmen spent a pleasant hour or two in the concert-rooms, of which there were several admirably conducted; or pored hours long over the papers, chiefly literary, in the Alster Halle; sipping our coffee, and listening in the pauses of our reading to the band of choice musicians, who played occasionally through the evening. Sometimes we dived into snug cellars, where they sold good beer, or mixed odoriferous punch; and here again music would come, though in a more questionable shape, her attendant priestesses being the wandering harp-players, who sang sentimental ditties to the tw.a.n.ging of their instruments. Other places there were, some in the city, and some outside the walls, where an abominable medley of waltz, smoke, wine, and lotto made up the evening's entertainment. The larger of these establishments had some pretensions to gentility, seeing that they did not allow gentlemen to dance with their hats on; but whatever other claims they set up to the respect of the community may be briefly set down as worth very little. It will not unnaturally follow that where there is much liberty there will be some licence, and with respect to Hamburg, it is in her dance-houses that this excess is to be found. But where is the wonder? The Hamburger authorities in this, and some other cases, set up a sort of excise officer, and grant permits for this frivolity, and that vice, at a regular scale of charges.

In spite of these half-incentives and whole encouragements to laxity of behaviour, what is the general character of the Hamburger population? I venture to call them provident, temperate, and industrious. Let it be remembered that we speak of a mercantile port, in some parts a little like Wapping, and into and out of which there is a perpetual ebb and flow of seamen of all nations, full of boisterous humour, of strong life, and wilful in their recent escape from s.h.i.+p restraint. The worst of the dance-houses are situated near the water's edge, and are almost wholly frequented by sailors; while the other resorts which are open to the charge of licentiousness, have also a strong proportion of maritime frequenters, and the rest is mostly made up of the wandering workmen of Germany, to many of whom Hamburg is a culminating point, and who are, as it were, out on leave. But, after all, these cancer spots are few indeed, when compared with the great proportion of the means of amus.e.m.e.nt thrown open, or, rather never closed to the people. Wander on the Sunday when and where you will; in theatre, concert-room, or coffee-house; in public garden or beer-cellar; you will find them joyous indeed, sometimes loud in song or conversation, and taking generally a sort of pride in a dash of rudeness, calling it independence, but you will never find them sottish; nowhere c.u.mbering the footway with their prostrate carcases; nowhere reeling zigzag, blear-eyed and stupid, to a miserable home.

On tramp towards the South, we rested on the Sunday in Schwerin, the capital of Mecklenburg; but there was public mourning in the city for a death in the ducal family, and the usual Sunday festivities were forbidden. On attending church in the evening I found a large congregation, and the service similar to that of Hamburg. In the afternoon, as there was no military parade or music, over the absence of which the chambermaids of Der Gross-Herzog moaned dolorously, we rambled through the ducal garden, admiring the quaintly-shaped basin in its centre, its numerous statues, and fresh gra.s.s. The town was dull and methodical enough, but would have been rejoicing, if it had not been respectfully mournful.

Our next resting-place was Berlin, where we stayed two months; and here, according to our experience, the Sunday afternoon recreations differed only in tone from those of Hamburg, being less boisterous in their gaiety than in the former seaman's paradise. We never worked on Sunday in Berlin, nor did any of our artizan friends, although there were very pressing orders in the shape of those unvarying German court douceurs, diamond-circled snuff boxes, and insignia of the Red and Black Eagle.

Once, we accompanied our princ.i.p.al, by special invitation, to the Hasenheide, to witness the rifle practice, civil and military, among its heather and sandy hollows. Officers and rank and file alike were there; the officer practising with the private's heavy gewehr, and the private in his turn with the light weapon of his superior in grade. There were some capital shots among them. Thence, on the same day, we waded through the sand to Tegel, to visit the residence and private grounds of Baron Humboldt; and from a mound in his garden beheld the beautifully picturesque view of Lake Tegel, and the distant towers of Spandau. I have been present on the Sunday at a review of the Royal Guard in their striking uniform of black and dazzling white.

Once, we made a river voyage in a huge tub of a boat along the weedy banks of the Spree, under the command of a female captain-a jolly matron, weighing I am afraid to guess how many stone. I am told it was a very plebeian piece of business, but we were very happy notwithstanding. We had a Tafel-lieder party on board, with a due proportion of guitars, and they played and sang all the way to Treptow and back again. Once arrived at our destination, we sat upon the gra.s.s, and watched the merry groups around, or sauntered along the margin of the stream, sipping occasionally very inconsiderable quant.i.ties of feeble cordials; and when the evening drew near, we re-embarked, and, under the safe conduct of our female commodore-who was skilled in the difficult navigation of the shallow river-returned soberly home. The environs of Berlin are of no great beauty, the city being built on a sandy plain, with the single eminence of the Kreutzberg, from which it can be viewed with advantage; but in and about the city there are beautiful gardens, private and of royal foundation, and these are invariably open to the public. One happy Sunday afternoon we spent in Charlottenburg, the pleasure-palace of the king; and one other in the n.o.ble botanical gardens in the city; while on a fine day the avenue of lime trees, Unter-den-Linden, in its crowd of promenaders, and social groups at the refreshment tables, presented an animated, and, to my mind, a recreative and humanising spectacle. Music was everywhere; and in the theatres, in the display of pyrotechnic eccentricities, or perhaps in ballooning-but that was English-the evening was variously spent. There may be dance-houses and other abominations in Berlin, as in Hamburg, but I never heard of them, and if they existed, more was the pity. For my own part, I was happy in enjoying the moderate pleasures of life in company with the majority of my fellow-workmen, who, I must again say, and insist upon, were not at work, but at rest, on the Sunday. It is true that here, as elsewhere, tailors and boot-makers (master-men) were content to take measures, and receive orders from the workmen, for very little other opportunity presented itself for such necessary service.

A few hours' whirl on the railway on a Sunday saw us in Leipsic. This was at the Easter festival; and we stayed two months in this Saxon market of the world, embracing in their course the most important of the three great markets in the year. If ever there was a fair opportunity of judging the question of Sunday labour and Sunday rest, it was in Leipsic, at this period. If Sunday work be a necessary consequence of Sunday recreation-an absurd paradox, surely-it would have been exhibited in a commercial town, at a period when all the elements of frivolity, as gathered together at a fair; and all the wants of commerce compressed into a few brief weeks, were brought into co-existence. Yet in no town in Germany did I witness so complete a cessation from labour on the Sunday. There was no question of working. Early in the morning there was, it is true, a domestic market in the great square, highly interesting to a stranger from the number of curious costumes collected together; the ringletted Polish Jew, old Germans from Altenburg, seeming masqueraders from the mining districts of the Erzgeberge, and country folks from every neighbouring village, who flocked to Leipsic with their wares and edibles. But all this was at an end long before the church service commenced. I have been in the Nicolai-Kirche (remarkable for its lofty roof, upheld by columns in the form of palm trees), and the congregation thronged the whole edifice. And at a smaller church, I was completely wedged in by the standing crowd of unmistakable working people, whose congregational singing was particularly effective. The German Protestant church service is not so long as our own. There are only a few pews in the body of the building; and the major part of the audience stand during the service. I was not so well pleased with one sermon I heard in the English church, for it happened to be the effort of a German preacher; a student in our tongue, whose discourse was indeed intrinsically good, and would have been solemn, if the pauses and emphases had only been in the right places.

I never worked on Sunday in Leipsic, nor was I acquainted with any one who did. The warehouses were strictly closed; and a few booths, with trifling gewgaws, were alone to be seen. The city was at rest. Leipsic has but one theatre, and to this the prices of admission are doubled in fair-time, which placed it out of our reach. Thus we were forced to be content with humbler sources of amus.e.m.e.nt, and to find recreation, which we readily did, in the beautiful promenades round the city, laid out by Dr. Muller; in country rambles to Breitenfeld, and other old battle-fields; in tracing the winding paths of a thin wood, near the town, wonderful to us from the flakes of wool (baumwolle) which whitened the ground. Or again, among the bands of music and happy crowds which dotted the Rosenthal-a t.i.tle, by the bye, more fanciful than just, seeing that the vale in question is only a gra.s.sy undulating plain. Here we sometimes met the "Herr," with wife on arm, and exchanged due salutations.

The fair, such as we understand by the name, commenced in the afternoon, and was a scene of much noise and some drollery. The whole town teemed with itinerant musicians, whose violent strains would sometimes burst from the very ground under your feet, as it appeared, issuing as they did from the open mouths of beer and wine-cellars. Quiet coffee-houses there were, in which grave citizens smoked and read; and admirable concerts in saloons, and in the open air. To one of these latter I was seduced by the mendacious announcement of a certain Wagner of Berlin, that a whole troop of real Moors would perform fantastic tricks before high heaven; and on paying the price of admission, I had to run the gauntlet through a score of black-headed Teutons, who salaamed and grinned as they ushered me into the blank s.p.a.ce beyond, containing nothing more interesting than a few tables and chairs, a dumb bra.s.s band, and a swarm of hungry waiters. I saw no dance-houses, such as there were in Hamburg; and by nine o'clock the festivities of the day were at an end. The Easter fair lasted some five or six weeks, and at its termination its merriment disappeared. The wandering minstrels wailed their last notes as they departed, and the quiet city was left to its students and the pigeons.

So much for my experiences of Protestant Germany as regards Sunday occupation. I have, however, said nothing of museums or picture galleries. I should be sorry to misrepresent the kindred commercial cities of Hamburg and Leipsic; but I think they may shake hands on this question, seeing that, at the period of my visit, they possessed neither the one nor the other. I do not say that there were no stored-up curiosities, dignified with the t.i.tle of museums. But, as far as the public instruction was concerned, they were nearly useless, being little known and less visited, and certainly not accessible on the Sunday.

Schwerin, in Mecklenburg, possesses a n.o.ble ducal museum of arts and sciences, but this also was closed on the weekly holiday; and in Berlin, where the museum, par excellence, may vie with any in Europe, and which city is otherwise rich in natural and art collections, the doors of all such places were, on the Sunday, strictly closed against the people. Of the good taste which authorises the display of stage scenery and decorations (and that not of the best), and yet forbids the inspection of the masterpieces of painting; of the judgment which patronises beer and tobacco, yet virtually condemns as unholy the sight of the best evidences of nature's grandeur, and the beautiful results of human efforts in art, it is not necessary to treat here.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

MORE SUNDAYS ABROAD.

Still on tramp toward the south, we came to Dresden, and there rested five days; but as they were week-days their experiences gave us no insight into the Sunday usages of the place, and I only allude to them because it would seem unbecoming to pa.s.s the capital of Saxony without a word; and because I feel morally convinced that of all the art-wonders collected in the Zwinger, Das Grune Gewolbe, and in the picture gallery, all of which we visited, not any of them are visible to the public on Sunday. {173} On a sultry day in August we struggled, dusty and athirst, into Vienna. It is said that the first impressions of a traveller are the most faithful, and I therefore transcribe from a diary of that time some of my recollections of the first Sunday spent in the capital of Austria. It is not flattering.

"Yesterday (Sunday), we rambled through a part of the city known as Lerchenfeld, in the suburb of St. Joseph, where the low life of Vienna is exhibited. It was a kind of fair. The way was lined with petty booths and stalls, furnished with fruit, pipes, and common pastry. Here were sold live rabbits and birds; there, paper clock-faces, engravings, songs, and figures of saints. In one part was a succession of places of public resort, like our tea-gardens in appearance, but devoted to the sale of other beverages; tea being here almost unknown, except as a medicine.

From each of them there streamed the mingled sounds of obstreperous music and human voices, while in several there appeared to be a sort of conjuring exhibition in course of performance. Further on, there came from the opposite side of the way the screaming of a flageolet, heard far above its accompaniment of a violin and a couple of horns, to all of which the shuffling and sc.r.a.ping of many feet formed a sort of dull ba.s.s, as the dancers whirled round in their interminable waltz. Looking into the window of the building thus outrageously conspicuous, we saw a motley crowd of persons of both s.e.xes, and in such a variety of costumes as scarcely any other city but Vienna could furnish; some of them careering round in the excitement of the dance; others impatiently awaiting their turn, or quizzing the dancers; while a third party sat gravely at the side-tables, smoking their pipes, playing at cards, and sipping their wine and beer. Pa.s.sing onward, we came upon a diminutive merryman, screaming from the platform of his mountebank theatre, the nature of the entertainment and the lowness of the price of admission-'Only four kreutzers for the first place!'

"Continuing our course, we were attracted into a side-street by a crowd, among whom stood conspicuous a bra.s.s musical band, and an old man in a semi-religious costume of black and white, bearing a large wooden crucifix in his hand. In antic.i.p.ation of some religious ceremony, we waited awhile to watch its development. It was a funeral, and the whole procession soon formed itself in the following order:-First came the large crucifix, then a boy bearing a banner on which was painted the figure of the Virgin; then came six other boys, followed by the same number of girls, all neatly and cleanly dressed; and then the coffin, hung with scarlet drapery, adorned with flowers, and having a small silver crucifix at its head. We were told it was the funeral of a girl of thirteen. Close upon the coffin came the minister, or priest, clad in a black, loosish gown, and wearing a curiously crown-shaped cap, also black. Every head was uncovered as he and the coffin pa.s.sed. Then came, as we imagined, the real mourners of the dead, followed by six exceedingly old women, mourners by profession, and immediately behind them the bra.s.s band which had first attracted our attention. The latter, as soon as the procession was fairly in motion, burst forth into a noisy, and by no means melancholy strain, and continued to play for some time; they suddenly ceased, and there was heard from some one at the head of the procession a Latin prayer, which was immediately echoed by the old women in the rear, in the same drowsy, monotonous tone in which the church responses are usually made. The scene was altogether curious and striking; the progress of the procession was everywhere marked by uncovered heads and signs of sympathy and respect; but in spite of its attempted solemnity, there was a holiday appearance about it which jarred sadly with its real character of grief and death."

I have given this description a front place because it is the worst thing I can say of Vienna, and in no other part of the city did I ever see its like. During a stay of twelve months, I lost no opportunity of enjoying all that the Viennese enjoyed, or of witnessing whatever was part of the national customs in festival, holiday, or religious ceremonial. In addition to the Sundays, which were all, to a certain extent, days of rejoicing-there were nine distinct festivals in the year enjoined by the church, and on which, if they fell on week-days, the working people rested from their labours. Of course each of these days had its special religious reference and obligations, and these were in general faithfully observed; but, apart from this, they were essentially holidays, and, as no deduction of wages was made by the employers on their account, they did not fall as a burden upon the working cla.s.ses. These days were: New Year's Day, the Annunciation, Good Friday, Easter and Whit Sunday, Corpus Christi Day, All Saints' Day, the Birth of the Virgin, Christmas Day, and the festival of St. Leopold, the patron saint of Vienna. On the strictly church festivals, with the exception of All Saints' Day, theatrical performances, and public amus.e.m.e.nts generally, were interdicted, but rest and quiet recreation, in addition to the religious observances, were their great characteristics. Easter and Whit Monday were among the Volks Feste (people's feasts), as well as one known as that of the Brigittenau, from the place in which it is held; and another on the first of May, when the laufer (running footmen) have their races in the Prater, and the emperor permits himself to be mobbed-at least the Emperor Francis did-as he strolls for a half-hour or so among his people in their own park.

Then the Bohemians have a special religious festival, when one is astonished to see, in out-of-the-way niches and corners, a perhaps. .h.i.therto-un.o.bserved figure of an amiable-looking priest, with a star on his forehead, now hung about and conspicuous with wreaths and festoons of flowers, and bright with the glittering of tiny lamps. This is the Holy St. John of Nepomuk. I have, however, nothing to do with the religious ceremonies of the Catholic Church. It is sufficient for my purpose to know that I watched the solemn and splendid procession of mingled royalty, priest, and people, on Corpus Christi Day, from the open door of a coffee and wine-house in the Kohl-market; and that, at the Easter festival, after ascending and descending the Mount Calvary, near Vienna, or rather having been borne up and down its semicircular flight of steps, and past the modelled groups of painted figures to represent the life of Christ, from the birth to the crowning act of the crucifixion on the summit, I then sauntered away with my landlord (a cabinet-maker) and his family to Weinhaus, to drink of the new wine called heueriger. It is enough that, on All Saints' Day, after wandering awhile about a swampy churchyard in the suburb of Maria Hilf, to see the melancholy spot of light which glimmered at each grave-head, I went to the Burg Theatre, and witnessed Shakespeare's play of "King Lear" (and the best actor in Vienna played the Fool); and further, that I spent the evening of Christmas Day in Daum's coffee-house in reading _Galignani's Messenger_, in order to bring myself, in imagination at least, as near home as possible.

The jewellers in Vienna are not such elderly apprentices as they are in Hamburg, Leipsic, and the majority of small towns in Germany. They dine at gast hause, and sleep in the independence of a separate lodging. They have, therefore, more liberty; but there are many trades in Vienna among whom the old usages still exist, by which they become a kind of va.s.sals, living and sleeping under the patriarchal roof. All worked twelve hours a-day alike, from six till seven, including one hour for dinner. Various licences were, however, allowed; quarter-of-day or half-hour deductions were scarcely known; and I have myself spent the morning at a public execution, without suffering any loss in wages. This brings me to the Sunday work; and I say, unhesitatingly that, as a system, it does not exist. I never worked on the Sunday myself during my whole twelve months' stay. I do not know that there was any law against it; but rest was felt to be a necessity after a week of seventy-two hours' labour. It is not unusual, both in Germany and France, to engage new hands on the Sunday morning, because it is a leisure time, convenient to both master and workman; and I have sought for work at this time, and found the Herr in a silk dressing-gown, and white satin slippers with pink bows. I recollect visiting a working cabinet-maker's on one Sunday morning, whose men slept on the premises, and found the workshop a perfect model of cleanliness and order: every tool in its place, and the whole swept and polished up; and was once invited, under the impression that, as an Englishman, I ought to know something of newspaper presses, to inspect those of the Imperial Printing Office, with the last number of the Wiener Zeitung in type; and this was on a Sunday morning-a time especially chosen on account of the absence of the workmen. My landlord, a master-man, would sometimes work in the Sunday morning when hard pressed; but, if he did, he took his revenge in the week.

As we did not work, at what did we play? Perhaps there was a sick comrade to visit in the great hospital; and we paced the long corridors, and stepped lightly through the lofty wards to his bedside. Or, if he were convalescent, we sought him out, among many others, in the open square, with its broad gra.s.s-plots and young trees, where, in his grey loose gown, he smoked a morning pipe. Or we went to church, I, with others, to the Evangelical Chapel near the Augustine Platz. There, among a closely-pressed throng, we heard admirable discourses (and not too long, the whole service being concluded in an hour), and heard much beautiful music; but, to my mind, there were too many tawdry ornaments in this place of wors.h.i.+p-too many lamps about the altar; and the altar-piece itself-a gigantic figure of the Saviour on the Cross, said to be by Albert Durer-seemed to be out of place.

It was lawful in Vienna to bathe on Sunday; and this we did, with great delight, in the public baths upon the Danube. Or we strolled about the Glacis; attended the miniature review in the Hof-Burg; wandered out as far as Am-Spitz, by the long wooden bridge over the broad and melancholy river; or, what was better, sauntered in some one of the beautiful gardens of the Austrian n.o.bility,-those of Schwargenberg, Lichtenstein, or in the Belvidere-thrown open to the public, not only on Sunday, but on every day in the week.

As the day waned, music burst forth in many strains at once. There was a knot of artisans in our back room, who were learning the entire "Czar and Zimmerman," and who were very vigorous about this hour. At seven, the theatres opened their doors, with something of our own rush and press, although there was a guard-house, and a whole company of grenadiers in the ante-room; but, once in the interior, all was order and decorum.

There was, of course, a difference in tone and character between the city and the suburban theatres, inasmuch as the ices and coffee of the court playhouses found their parallel in the beer and hot sausages of the Joseph Stadt and An-der-Wieden; but the performances of all rarely occupied more than two, and never exceeded three hours; and there was an amount of quiet and propriety manifested during the entertainment, which said something for the authorities, but more for the people.

As the night deepened, the ball-rooms and dancing-booths of Vienna,-the Sperl's, Das Tanz Salon beim Schaf, and so downward to the dens of Lerchenfeld-grew furious in music, and hysterical in waltz. It was something fearful. It made your eyes twinkle, and your head dizzy, to see that eternal whirling of so many human teetotums. They seemed to see nothing, to feel nothing, to know nothing; there was no animation in their looks; no speculation in their eyes; nothing but a dead stare, as if the dancers were under a spell, only to be released when the music was at an end. Generally speaking, I think the ball-rooms of continental cities are the curses and abominations of the Sunday. My landlord, who was no moralist, but played faro, draughts, and billiards on the Sunday evening, would not hear of his daughter attending a public ballroom.

There is a curious anomaly in connection with places of public entertainment which strikes a stranger at once, and which is equally true of Berlin as of Vienna; it is this: that, while private houses are closed at nine and ten o'clock, according to the season of the year, coffee-houses, taverns, dancing and concert-rooms, are open till midnight. Up to the former hours you may gain admission to your own house by feeing the porter to the extent of twopence; but, later than this, it is dangerous to try the experiment.

To return to out-of-door amus.e.m.e.nts. A visit to Schnbrun was business for a whole afternoon; for we must perforce each time unravel the windings to the pure spring in the maze, with vague and mysterious ideas of some time or other falling upon the grave of the Duc de Reichstadt, there secretly buried, according to popular tradition. On rare occasions we spent the whole of Sunday in some more distant palatial domain, or suburban retreat. In Klosterneuburgh, with its good wine: in the Bruhl, with its rugged steeps, its military memorials, and ruined castles; at the village of Bertholdsdorf, with its Turkish traditions; among the viny slopes of the Leopoldiberg, or the more distant and wilder tract of mingled rock and forest which encircle the Vale of Helen. Above all, there was Laxenberg,-an imperial pleasure-palace and garden, and a whole fairy-land in itself, peopled by the spirits of ancient knights and courtly dames. Some one of the Hapsburgs had built, many years ago, a knightly castle on a lake, and in it were stored dim suits of armour of Maximilian; a cabinet of Wallenstein; grim portraits of kings and warriors; swords, halbards, jewelled daggers, and antique curiosities innumerable; only rather prosaically completed by the exhibition of the every-day suit of the last Emperor of Austria, which, however affecting a spectacle for a simple-hearted Viennese-and they are mere babies in matters of royalty-irresistibly reminded one of Holywell Street, London, and cast-off regimentals. Laxenberg is distant less than a s.h.i.+lling ride, and about two hours' walk from Vienna; and, like our Hampton Court Palace, is thrown unreservedly open to the public. There were no end to its wonders: fis.h.i.+ng-grounds, and boats upon the lake; waterfalls, and rustic bridges were there; and one little elegant pavilion, perched on the water, dedicated to the beauties of Windsor, ill.u.s.trating its scenery in transparent porcelain. There was a list for knightly riders; a dais for the Queen of Beauty; and places for belted n.o.bles, saintly abbots, and Wambas in motley; an Ashby-de-la-Zouch in miniature, which a little imagination could people. Then, for the plebeians, there were leaping-bars and turning-posts, skittle-alleys, and the quintain; and, for all alike, cl.u.s.ters of n.o.ble trees, broad gra.s.sy meads, and flowers unnumbered. There was even a farm-house, homely and substantial, with a dairy and poultry-yard, sheep in the paddocks, and cattle in the stalls.

We started from Vienna on a Sunday morning on board the steamboat Karl for Linz; and trudging thence on foot came on the following Sat.u.r.day night into Salzburg, the queen of the Salzack. We rested here one happy Sunday: not so much in the town, which had its abundant curiosities, as in the pleasure gardens of the old Archbishops of Salzburg, at an easy stroll from it. This garden is pleasant enough in itself, but there are besides a number of water eccentricities in it such as I should think were in their peculiar fas.h.i.+on unequalled. Here blooms a cl.u.s.ter of beautiful flowers, covered as it were by a gla.s.s shade, but which turns out to be only water. There a miniature palace is in course of erection, with crowds of workmen in its different storeys, each man at his avocation with hammer and chisel, pulley and wheel, and the grave architect himself directing their labour. All this is set in motion by water, and is not a mere doll's house, but a symmetrical model. Then we enter a subterranean grotto, with a roof of pendant stalact.i.tes, where the pleasant sound of falling waters and the melodious piping of birds fill all the air. There is a sly drollery too in some of the water performances, invented years ago by the grave Archbishops of Salzburg; for suddenly the stalact.i.tes are set dripping like a modern shower bath: and the gigantic stags at its entrance spout water from the very tips of their horns. The garden is not a Versailles, for there is nothing grand in any of its hydraulic arrangements; but in the beauty with which are clothed such trifles, the artistic spirit which has suggested its objects, and the humour which spirts up tiny jets of water by seats where lovers sit, and in unsuspected places where the public congregate, even in the middle of a walk, it is a wonderful and delightful exhibition.

This garden was thronged by the holiday folks of Salzburg. There was an official to explain the curious display, and nothing but innocent gaiety was to be seen.

The Sunday we spent in Munich was pa.s.sed in the Kirche Unserer Lieben Frauen, with its self-supporting roof; in the English Garden; and at a lovely spot on a hill-side, in the environs of the city. During the week we were escorted by a friend to a sort of tea-gardens of some notoriety, but found it silent and deserted. Our friend apologised for its dulness, but exclaimed, in part explanation, "You should see it on Sunday!" It was evident that Sunday was a day of rest and enjoyment, and not a working day in Munich. My own impression of the Munichers was, that they drank too much beer every day in the week.

Still tramping towards France, we pa.s.sed one Sunday in Heidelberg, among all its romantic wonders; but as everybody knows, or ought to know, all about Heidelberg, I will not allow my enthusiasm to lead me into a description which would not be novel, and might probably be tedious.

This was the last Sunday we spent on German ground. So far as Germany is concerned, you may look upon everything but museums, picture galleries, and the like, on Sunday; you may, as Luther says you ought, "dance on it, ride on it, play on it,-do anything"-but see that which is most likely to instruct you. You may visit tawdry shows, and inspect badly painted scenery; you may let off fireworks; gamble to your ruin; smoke the eyes out of your head, and dance the head off your shoulders; but you shall not, with few exceptions, look upon works of art, or the results of science in museums and picture galleries. Let it be said, however, that the general opportunities for acquiring correct and elevated taste are, on the whole, greater in Germany than in England; and that in many cities there is a profusion of exterior ornament, more especially in Munich, in the shape of the fresco paintings of the Palace Garden, on Isar Thor, and in the Basilica and churches generally, so that the eye is better educated in artistic combinations; and the same necessity does not exist for special art instruction with them as with us. Then, let us never forget that their public and other gardens are as free to them as the air they breathe, and that music is almost as universal.