s any that could start from the
strings of some old violin.

The German band in Germany has to know its business to be listened to by
a German audience. The Bavarian artisan or shopkeeper understands and
appreciates good music, as he understands and appreciates good beer. You
cannot impose upon him with an inferior article. A music-hall audience
in Munich are very particular as to how their beloved Wagner is rendered,
and the trifles from Mozart and Haydn that they love to take in with
their sausages and salad, and which, when performed to their
satisfaction, they will thunderously applaud, must not be taken liberties
with, or they will know the reason why.

The German beer-garden should be visited by everyone who would see the
German people as well as their churches and castles. It is here that the
workers of all kinds congregate in the evening. Here, after the labours
of the day, come the tradesman with his wife and family, the young clerk
with his betrothed and--also her mother, alack and well-a-day!--the
soldier with his sweetheart, the students in twos and threes, the little
grisette with her cousin, the shop-boy and the workman.

Here come grey-haired Darby and Joan, and, over the mug of beer they
share between them, they sit thinking of the children--of little Lisa,
married to clever Karl, who is pushing his way in the far-off land that
lies across the great sea; of laughing Elsie, settled in Hamburg, who has
grandchildren of her own now; of fair-haired Franz, his mother's pet, who
fell in sunny France, fighting for the fatherland. At the next table
sits a blushing, happy little maid, full of haughty airs and graces, such
as may be excused to a little maid who has just saved a no doubt
promising, but at present somewhat awkward-looking, youth from lifelong
misery, if not madness and suicide (depend upon it, that is the
alternative he put before her), by at last condescending to give him the
plump little hand, that he, thinking nobody sees him, holds so tightly
beneath the table-cloth. Opposite, a family group sit discussing
omelettes and a bottle of white wine. The father contented,
good-humoured, and laughing; the small child grave and solemn, eating and
drinking in business-like fashion; the mother smiling at both, yet not
forgetting to eat.

I think one would learn to love these German women if one lived among
them for long. There is something so sweet, so womanly, so genuine about
them. They see