POPULAR AMUSEMENTS IN GERMANY.

When one thinks of the downright substantial way in which English people amuse themselves, with cricket, football, lawn-tennis, rowing, foot-racing, leaping, &c., all over the kingdom, it is strange to find so little of active sport of the kind among our muscular cousins of the Vaterland. To be sure there are boating clubs and athletic societies, and gymnasia in the schools and elsewhere; and soldiers are exercised in gymnastics, but there is too much of military stiffness about it. Amusements of a passive character find most favour. To ‘make’ a walk in a leisurely fashion, to drive in an open conveyance, or to sit down in a shady grove to listen to a band playing, is the most acceptable mode of enjoying relaxation. With beer at a penny-farthing a glass, and a tolerable cigar for a halfpenny, and a military or string band discoursing sweet music, the time passes pleasantly enough. It makes a great difference when you have not to pay very dearly for your whistle, and they certainly know how to get the most for their money in the land of the Teuton. Many houses of refreshment, even in towns, have gardens or courtyards thickly planted with trees, so that their branches meet overhead and form a pleasant and inviting shade. A large shed, too, is provided, open on the garden-side, in case of rain. Frequently, music is introduced, and on these occasions, an extra halfpenny is charged on the beer, to cover the expense of the entertainment. On Sundays and festivals, there is music, beer, wine, and tobacco everywhere. And yet these people know how to amuse themselves without going to excess. Sometimes a tipsy man is seen, but rarely till very late at night, and the occurrence is so infrequent, that, compared with the usages of our own country, it is quite remarkable.

We have more than once asked the question: ‘Is it that the beer is weaker, or that the German heads are stronger than the English?’ and we have been told: ‘Perhaps it is a little of both.’ Perhaps, too, there is something in the fact that there is in some respects less class distinction in Germany, and the middle classes may be seen sipping their wine or coffee in the same place with their hard-working brethren. Perhaps the national and natural good opinion, self-respect, or self-esteem—call it what you will—of the German helps to keep him straight; and then he takes his creature-comforts in a staid, stolid, philosophic way. Noisy fellows there are, of course; but they do not squabble and fight, as a rule; the utmost they are guilty of being the national practice, even at midnight, of singing rollicking choruses, to the great disturbance of peace-loving, law-abiding, slumbering citizens. The fact that soldiers are permitted to wear their side-arms constantly, speaks volumes for the sobriety of the men as a class, and redounds to their credit.

A Turnfest or athletic festival, generally held on a Sunday, is a great affair, often the event of the year in a small provincial town. There is a wonderful display of flags everywhere; and in the afternoon, a procession of the competitors and visitors with bands and banners and every variety of costume, the medals, badges, and ribbons of former contests being worn with great ostentation. The most is made of everything; and shouting and singing and cheering, and dust and noise, seem to be the order of the day.

Rowing-matches provoke immense enthusiasm, and a regatta is an affair that induces the keenest interest. A people with so much love for the wonderful and so much regard for themselves, cannot help throwing into such occasions an amount of enthusiasm and national pride as would do credit to the Oxford and Cambridge boatrace itself. The members of the Boat Club are the heroes of the hour, and their costumes the object of great admiration. Though not so peculiar as the French in this respect, our German neighbours are nevertheless great in their ‘get-up’ for every particular sort of occupation or sport that they engage in. If a man brings down only one snipe in a day, he looks tremendously cut out for business notwithstanding, and appears every inch of him a sportsman when going to or returning from the ‘hunt,’ as he calls it.

The exercise of riding cannot be properly accomplished without a complete and appropriate rig-out, so that even when he is not actually on his horse, the equestrian gives to all the world the assurance of a man at home in the saddle. If spurs and jack-boots do not make a rider, they at anyrate look very much in earnest. Never did a be-uniformed people more thoroughly believe in the dignity of dress and the necessity for effect than the Germans.

However we may smile at the eccentricities and oddities of the Germans, we must admit that they beat us in the provision of cheap music for the people, most of whom understand and appreciate it. Every school-teacher is bound to be a musician and to pass in music, so that the people have a chance of learning from childhood.

If the Prince of Wales succeeds as well in popularising the study of music as his father did in popularising art, we may hope to see before long a great reformation in the morals of our own people; and the wandering German bands, composed of the worst players in their own country—where they would not presume to play in public—will no longer be tolerated in England, because the taste of the people will be educated above such wretched performances. Good music, then, everywhere is what is wanted to enable the lower classes to enjoy themselves rationally, and no better means of promoting the sobriety of a nation can be devised. The more the masses are leavened with a knowledge and love of music, the more indeed we imitate the Germans in this respect, the less necessity there will be for restrictive measures in the way of ‘local option,’ and the lighter and easier will be the work of temperance reformers. A great reform will have been effected. If music can charm savages and snakes, it can do much more for our toiling, amusement-lacking countrymen and countrywomen.

The theatre is much patronised in Germany, the prices being cheap, the music good, and the performances fair. The play begins at seven, and ends about nine or half-past. Concerts, too, both instrumental and vocal, are frequent; every town has its Choral Society, and every district its Choral Union, so that there is never any lack of vocalists of both sexes for the performance of an oratorio or the celebration of any great occasion.

Where a people is satisfied with simple pleasures, these can, of course, be provided at little cost. Children have their swings, climbing-poles, bowling alley, merry-go-rounds, horizontal bars, &c., in the public gardens; and when one sees groups of officers deeply interested in the game of dominoes, it does not cause so much surprise to witness a huge whirligig worked by horses or steam, where servant-maids and soldiers are driven round and round upon painted wooden horses to the enlivening strains of a barrel organ, aided by a cornet or two and the universal drum. This sort of affair is a great attraction to the masses, and being generally placed near a beerhouse, admiring friends sit round on benches with their beakers of frothy beer, their cigars or large pipes, waiting to take a turn on the machine after a time. Music everywhere seems to be the rule—there can never be too much of it to please the people. Wherever there is a company of soldiers marching along the road without a band at their head, they make up for the deficiency by singing popular melodies and martial songs, keeping time with their feet; and this always gives strangers a favourable impression of the hearty, happy, and even merry German soldier.

A torchlight procession headed by a band of music is a favourite mode of making a demonstration on any particular festive occasion; and last, but not least, is the highly popular serenade. The Choral Societies of a town will unite—as was the case in Darmstadt on the night before the marriage of the granddaughter of Queen Victoria, the Princess Victoria of Hesse—to the number of three hundred men, and parade before the residence of the person they delight to honour, each member carrying a lighted Chinese lantern at the end of a stick. A selection of popular songs and glees suitable to the occasion is sung, and in many instances the melodies and words are peculiarly fitting. One might write a whole chapter about the amusements of the Carnival time, the masked balls and street displays; and although these affairs are somewhat stolid and quite decorous in character, they contain the elements of simple fun, innocent recreation, and hearty enjoyment. Here, again, music is an important factor, for it enters into everything, and forms the beginning and the ending of every variety of popular amusement.