A Journey of a Jayhawker

by W. Y. Morgan

GERMANY.

IN THE BLACK FOREST.

Triberg, Germany, July 17, 1905.

This is a small town in the middle of the Black Forest. I had read a good deal of the Black Forest, but really had no idea what it was. The name sounded as if it might be a part of Arkansas or Louisiana, and I think I was looking for swamps and waste land covered with underbrush and impenetrable to travelers except on made roads. But as a matter of fact it is as delightful and beautiful a country as I have seen since I left Kansas. The land is mountainous, but it is fertile and the valleys and hillsides are dotted with thrifty-looking little farms. The name applies, all right, for the mountains are covered with dense forests of spruce trees with a dark-green foliage which looks really black. The farming land has evidently been cleared in the centuries that have passed since the roving Germans settled into peaceful peasants and quit their occupation of making Rome howl by raiding and pillaging the towns of the declining empire. The Black Forest covers a great part of southwest Germany, mostly in the state or grand duchy of Baden. Up to a short time ago it had a number of practically independent little kingdoms about the size of your hat, which were in a perpetual struggle for existence and recognition. Anthony Hope used the Black Forest as the scene for his Zenda stories, and to-day we came through the principality of Fürstenberg, one of his favorite places, in which the prince of Fürstenberg still holds an honorary position but under the actual government of Emperor William. I also noticed that the prince was proprietor of a big brewery.

It is harvest-time in the Black Forest, and men and women are gathering the crops, small grain and hay, using the hand-sickle and the hand-rake but doing their work in a thorough manner. When they get through the raking I don’t suppose there is a waste straw left lying on the ground or a kernel of grain which is not carefully picked up. The farmer in Europe would get rich on what an American farmer drops on the way from the field to the barn. They have fine horses and cattle in the Black Forest, and look prosperous. When one horse is used in a wagon he is harnessed alongside the pole and not between shafts. I was told the reason was that it was to make it easy to add another horse if desired without changing the pole. That was nearly as strange as the one horse alongside the pole.

The time is past when the sight of ladies working in the field excites any interest, although I still have a little feeling when the woman is sixty or seventy years old. It is not so bad in Germany, and especially in the Black Forest, where the air is light and exhilarating; and then the men work too. In Italy the hauling was done by animals as follows: Horses, oxen, cows, dogs, women. Sometimes a woman and a dog were hitched together to small wagons, especially milk carts. In Switzerland the dogs were still in harness, but the women were out of it. And in the Black Forest I believe the dogs are freed, as all the vehicles I have seen have been drawn by horses or oxen. Perhaps it will be different later. I write now only of the Black Forest. We drove for twelve miles down one of the valleys and through the little villages. A number of the old peasant costumes were worn by women and girls, although most of them were dressed in the same styles as in Paris or Hutchinson. A very striking head-dress for the feminine is one of the Black Forest styles, a bonnet with two large wings extending upward at an angle of about 40 degrees from the head, and with flowing bands several feet long down the back. Girls and unmarried women have bright-colored wings and bands, married women must wear black. By the way, the women of continental Europe wherever we have been have worn earrings,—France, Italy, and Switzerland. As American women generally discarded these disfiguring ornaments several years ago, the sight has been a strange one. Especially in Italy are the earrings large and imposing, rich and poor vieing with each other in size of the pendants and rings.

Aside from agriculture the main industry of the Black Forest is wood-carving and clock-making. There are some small factories, but as a rule the work is done at home; and it is very good. We visited one of these home shops, and the whole family showed us their handiwork. A beautifully carved wooden hall clock with a cuckoo and a music-box which played every half-hour was only $4 American money. It must have taken the man a week to make it, and in our country the price would have been several times as large. There is a big tariff on this ware going into America, and it is all right. If it were not so, our American wood-workers would have to learn another trade or work for $4 or $5 a week. And if they got only $4 or $5 a week they would not eat much meat, buy much clothing, or pay for many newspapers. See?

The people of the Black Forest are a charming, friendly lot. I suppose they are as happy as anybody, although one of them was very proud of a brother who had gone to America and was making “much geld,” and whom he would follow if he could. All through Europe I meet people who have relatives in America, and that may account for the friendly treatment I have everywhere received. These American relatives have all gotten “rich” according to their European relatives, which shows that the immigrants to our country all succeed or keep a stiff upper lip when they write to the folks in the fatherland.

The architecture of the Black Forest houses is as striking as any I have seen. Nearly every farmhouse is very large, at least three stories high, and on one or more sides the roof “gambrels” off from the high ridge nearly to the ground. The effect is like a tent-covering, and the roof is often thatched or tiled in two or three colors,—on some the green grass is growing. Part of the house is the barn. The winter here is said to be severe, and the Forest peasant evidently believes in having his family and his horses, cows and chickens where they can be comfortable and sociable. The houses are extra clean, and the furniture, dishes and utensils of the kitchen shine with the good polishing they must receive. The little farms are tilled to the limit, and are generally irrigated and always fertilized. Just to show how these people manage to get a living out of the ground and the care they use to get it all, I saw women and men on the roadside with baskets cleaning the road of manure and carrying it to their land.

We have had to learn a new money system in Germany. France, Italy, Switzerland and Belgium have what is called a “Latin league,” with interchangeable currency, the unit being the franc (France, Switzerland, and Belgium), and the lire (Italy). But Germany joins no Latin leagues. The unit of the German currency is the “mark,” equivalent to twenty-five cents American. This is divided into one hundred pfennigs. Prices are carried out to the pfennig, and one-pfennig coins (in value one-fourth of one cent) are seen more than our one-cent pieces at home. That illustrates the close, exact, economical German spirit. The first time I made a small purchase in Germany I got a pocketful of change. Mrs. Morgan wanted a little money, and I gave her a couple of handfuls. She said she didn’t want so much, as she only intended to buy inexpensive things. I had actually given her about fifty cents. When one hundred copper coins make twenty-five cents and they are used in most transactions, you can realize what a heavy load you carry and how you can get that wealthy feeling without much actual expense.

Soon after leaving Constance our road turned away from the Rhine, and going through a tunnel we were in the valley of the Danube. It startled me a little, as I had always connected the Danube with Austria and Turkey. But sure enough, we were riding along the banks of the Danube, which has been made famous by history, poetry and music. If a raindrop fell on one side of that hill it would go down to the Rhine to the Baltic, and if the wind blew it over to the other side before it struck the earth it would start eastward and journey down the Danube to the Black sea. Rivers are like human beings,—they get their directions from the place where they start and go onward along the road of least resistance to the place appointed, unless dammed or taken up by man or God, in which case they will struggle and work to seep back to the channel in which it was intended they should make their course.

By the way, the “Beautiful Blue Danube” is not blue at all in this part of its career, but almost black, seemingly taking its hue from the forests in which it has its origin.

The town of Triberg is a quaint little place near the top of the mountain, and apparently about one hundred miles from Nowhere. I have had my first experience with what I understand is not infrequent in old German towns. There is a tax on strangers, thirty pfennigs a day or one mark a week, and our hotel has to pay and charge in our bill. Ministers of the gospel, and paupers, are exempt. In America if they had a fool tax like that they would also exempt newspaper men. The only way I could get out of paying the tax was to make affidavit that I was a minister or a pauper, so I reluctantly gave up the offer to dodge taxation and the town of Triberg is fifteen cents to the good on account of our stay. However, there is a very fine waterfall, and we looked fifteen cents’ worth at that and called it even.

STORIES OF STRASSBURG.

Strassburg, Germany, July 18, 1905.

To use the American vernacular, Strassburg is a good town. It has the best-looking stores, the most energetic acting people and the most thriving appearance of any city since we left Paris. The reason for this is probably the mingling of the German and the French and the location of the city as the metropolis of a very rich territory lying in both countries. Strassburg is a German city in which the people are at heart French. Thirty years ago the treaty which ended the Franco-German war gave Strassburg and two of the rich provinces of eastern France, Alsace and Lorraine, to the German empire. But it did not give the German emperor a warranty deed to the hearts of the people, and they long for their old associations. Probably the new generation is not so much disposed to France, and the influence of education and environment will gradually change the desire of the Alsatians to be sometime reunited with their old countrymen, but time and again to-day in talking with the Strassburgers they have given me to understand that they were not Germans but French.

Strassburg has a history as a city on its own account. Away back in 1300 the people revolted from the rule of the bishop who was their sovereign, and gained their independence. For 400 years Strassburg was what is known as a “free city,” owing some allegiance to the German empire but governing itself and doing about as it pleased. The language, the customs and the sympathy of the people were German. In 1681 Louis XIV. of France in a time of peace seized Strassburg, and a few years later in a general treaty France was confirmed in the title, and from that time until 1871 it was a French city. During the war of 1870 Strassburg did not surrender to the overwhelming German army until its defenses were battered down and the city bombarded. And as I wrote from Paris, in the galaxy of statues representing the cities of France in the Parisian Place de la Concorde, the statue of Strassburg is hung with emblems of mourning, and some day France will fight to get the city back. Germany knows this, and the city has been strongly fortified and a garrison of 15,000 German soldiers is kept there. So many soldiers in a city of 150,000 people give a showy look to the streets, the promenades and the public places, and doubtless is a good thing financially for the merchants.

Since leaving Italy I have sworn off on cathedrals, but I had to go to the one here because it is a good one and because of the Strassburg clock. The spire of the Strassburg cathedral is one of the highest in Europe, 465 feet, beating by a few feet St. Peter’s at Rome and St. Paul’s in London. The rest of the building is just the ordinary cathedral except for the clock. The first big clock was constructed here in 1352 and it lasted two centuries, when another took its place, to be succeeded sixty years ago by the present one. This clock is about the size of the front of an ordinary church. It not only tells the hour and minute of the day, but the day of the week, the month of the year, the feast days of the church, and is regulated to run for centuries, automatically making the right figures for leap years and adapting itself to the revolution of feast and fast days for an almost unlimited number of years. Every fifteen minutes an angel figure strikes the bell for the quarter-hour, and figures representing boyhood, youth, manhood and old age come out for the appropriate quarters. A skeleton strikes the hour and another reverses an hour-glass. At noon there is a parade of the twelve apostles before the Saviour, and a big rooster at one side crows loudly twice before Peter gets to the front and the third time as he passes. I am getting a great sympathy for Peter because he has that story thrown up to him in so many cathedrals, churches and pictures in Europe. It seems to me that Peter did enough after that to entitle him to a rest on the cock-crow story.

Next to the cathedral clock the most interesting sight to my mind was the washerwomen’s boats in the river. About 500 women were in these canal-shaped boats washing clothes, rinsing them in the river and having a good gossiping time of it. The emperor of Germany has a palace in Strassburg where he spends at least three days every year in the month of May. I did not know this, so when I saw the imperial palace on the city map I told the driver to take us there. I had never met Emperor William and he had never met me. I entered the palace door as directed by the cab-driver and was pleasantly received by a fine, portly gentleman. Of course I knew he wasn’t the emperor, so I spoke in a dignified way as becomes an American citizen toying with the effete monarchies of Europe, and asked the gentleman in my best German if the emperor was at home, at the same time assuring him that if the emperor was busy not to bother him, as I could come again after supper when he would be through his work. The fat gentleman bowed and told me the emperor was here only in May, and asked me if we would like to go over the palace. I spoke up abruptly, as if I were used to running around palaces; that as I had nothing else to do just then, having laid out to put in a short time with Emperor Bill, I wouldn’t mind if I did. He was a very nice man, a court chamberlain, he said, and he took Mrs. Morgan and me all through the palace and the big dining-room and ball-room and the king’s den, and all that sort of thing. Before we went onto the polished floors of the big rooms we had to put felt slippers on over our shoes—a good thing to keep the floors from getting scratched, and I suppose it is a kind of ground rule that Mrs. Emperor has made to protect the varnish from the hobnailed boots of William’s friends. I hope the custom won’t spread to America.

The German emperor has a mighty good house in Strassburg, and it has been furnished regardless of expense. There was a notice up, “Visitors not allowed to sit on the chairs,” but I wasn’t very tired anyway. I looked for a sign not to spit on the floor to go with some of the other wall decoration, but it must have been overlooked. The house looked stiff, and I don’t believe Bill has much fun at home and probably his wife makes him go out on the porch to smoke. I was sorry not to meet the emperor, as we will not get to Berlin, and I had some things to tell him. However, I feel that I have done the proper thing by calling on him and not waiting for him to hunt me up.

There is not so much American-made stuff in Europe as I expected. There is a good deal, but in fact these Germans and French are up to about everything that we are, and sometimes they have us bested. The Singer sewing-machine is everywhere, even in Italy. American shoes are the leaders in their lines in every city. American typewriters are sold ahead of European. Wernicke bookcases and office furniture are advertised and sold almost as at home. But the list of American goods is not very long, or else they are sold under other names and brands. To-day we bought a good picture of a typical German girl to take home with us as our art collection from Europe. Before we had gone a block Mrs. Morgan found the tag which proclaimed, “Made in Springfield, Massachusetts, U. S. A.” We were chagrined that our European purchase had turned out to be an American importation, sold to us at a higher price than it would have been at home, but we were proud that here in Germany they knew the country to send to in order to get good pictures of fetching Dutch maidens. At Zurich I started to buy a little office fixture which I thought I had never seen before and which I intended to take home to surprise the Kansans, when I found out just in time that it was made by the Globe-Wernicke company of Cincinnati, and I knew we had the same thing for sale at The News office in Hutchinson. Hereafter in buying souvenirs of Europe we will look close for the brand.

This is the place where the “pâté de fois gras” originated. I do not know how many people in Kansas know what pâté de fois gras is and whether it is a flower or a dog. I had once seen the words on a bill of fare in a very swell restaurant, but the figures which followed the name were so much larger than those after ham and eggs that I stuck to “ham and.” But when in Rome you must see the Forum, in Venice you must see St. Mark’s, and in Strassburg you must have some pâté de fois gras. The food combination which the four French words stand for is based on goose-liver, and corresponds to about what we would call “goose-liver smothered in roses.” It is very good, and you never forget the delicious taste or the price. Strassburg chefs make the stuff, can it and ship it all over the world to people who like delicate things to eat and who have sufficient credit to get a good stand-off. Pâté de fois gras is sweeter than chocolate, more luscious than peaches and more delicious than lemon pop at a Fourth of July picnic. It is a proof that Strassburgers have French stomachs as well as French hearts.

Speaking of eatables, we had the first loaf of bread in Switzerland that we had seen since we left home. After nearly two months on hard, stale rolls the sight of a reasonably good loaf of bread at Geneva made as strong an impression on my mind as Mont Blanc. Anybody who has traveled in Europe or in Arkansas will appreciate the feelings of a Kansan when he puts a slice of fairly soft bread between his teeth. It is better than pâté de fois gras, and it is almost exclusively an American institution.

IN OLD HEIDELBERG.

Heidelberg, Germany, July 22, 1905.

This is the old and famous university town of Germany. It is about two miles long and 200 yards wide, lying between the river Neckar and the steep hills which rise 500 feet high and which can only be ascended by terraced roads or a modern tunnel railway. The town is of comparatively recent origin, being really started only 850 years ago, when a Rhenish count who wanted to build a strong and impregnable fortress selected a spot 400 feet straight up the hill from the river and built the old castle of Heidelberg. Being thus the capital of a little German state, the Palatinate of the Rhine, it was an important place during the Middle Ages, and was fought over every few years for several centuries. In the fourteenth century the ruling count, whose title was Elector, developed a literary streak and founded the university, which became the center of learning and scientific study in Germany, and has continued so until the present day, although some of the newer universities like Berlin and Leipsig are now larger. The valley of the Neckar joins the valley of the Rhine here and makes a fertile territory and a prosperous city, but the university and the students are the main features of modern Heidelberg, now that counts, electors and castles are ruins or relics. There are many students in Heidelberg from America and other countries, but it is the rollicking German “yunkers” who make the life of the place.

German universities differ somewhat from American universities in the character and method of work. There are no recitations—only lectures and examinations. A student does not have to attend either. He can attend Heidelberg year in and year out and devote himself exclusively to the beer-garden and the dueling-ground. Or he can work hard, receive the ablest instruction and the highest degrees. The discipline of the common schools in Germany is severe—military in its character. But at the university the young man or young woman (for women now attend lectures at Heidelberg) can do as they please and go to Hades if they desire. The university buildings are plain and ordinary. The picturesque feature is the students, especially the young men who belong to the various “corps.” Less than 10 per cent. of the students are members of these societies, but they color the town, for each corps has a distinctive cap,—red, yellow, white, etc. These organizations are the social life of the university, and at all hours of the day or night they are in evidence, parading with their caps and canes, occupying the beer-gardens and the promenade, jollying the girl waiters and having what is called in America a High Old Time.

Everybody has heard of the duel or sword-fighting. It is as much an institution at Heidelberg as football is at Princeton or K. U. Not many students take part in it, only members of the six corps, but it is the show feature of student life. Each corps has about twenty members. Each member has to fight at least one duel a term with a member of some other corps. This morning we went to the dueling-place just outside of the city and saw the game.

One gets a great deal of misinformation about this student dueling, but as near as I can find out it is done in a genteel and cold-blooded manner. When it is the turn of one of the corps members to fight he makes a face or refuses to salute a member of another corps. That constitutes cause for the duel, and the preliminaries are then arranged by the officers of the respective corps according to the rules and regulations that have come down through generations. The fighting is done in an inner court of a wine-garden. This morning there were ten duels on the program, and when we arrived the third was in progress. A young man of the bright-red-cap corps was trying to slice the face of a member of the dark-red-cap corps. Each was covered with felt armor, which protected all of his body, and also had goggles and nose-pad, a little bit more so than a football player. The seconds, very similarly attired, stood by the side of the principals and struck up the swords at the end of each round or when the blood came. The only unprotected places were the head and face, and the game was to slash the opponent there, not to stick him. Thrusting is evidently against the rules. A surgeon with an apron like a butcher attended to the cuts and the members of both corps stood quietly and calmly by, giving vent to no expression of feeling whatever. The officers of each corps saluted, the word was given, the two swords clashed away for a minute, and each fellow had a nice long cut on his cheek. When the round was over the seconds sponged the cuts. There is no specified number of rounds, but whenever the two seconds are satisfied that one man is cut enough the other is declared the victor and they salute and retire to get court-plastered or sewed up as is necessary. We saw four duels and got tired of the fun. In the last fought one of the men was apparently an experienced swordsman and his opponent apparently a beginner. (I understand that in order to show his courage a new man always challenges an expert.) After four rounds the face of the weaker swordsman was streaming with blood from a half-dozen cuts. I suppose he looked upon his defeat as a real victory because he showed the fellows that he could stand up and take punishment and never wince. Some people have curious ideas of greatness.

They tell me no one is ever killed in these duels, but every member of every corps would be considered disfigured for life in America. Every one of them has long sears on his face and head. The restaurant where we eat is a favorite resort for the corps and we see much of them. It looks like a shame that every one of those bright young men will have to go through life with a face like a war map of Manchuria. But they wouldn’t trade those sears for love nor money. (I am told they are good for love.) They are the badges of bravery and ability, and are as highly prized as the bronze button of the Grand Army man. As I have remarked, some ambitions are very funny, and if the German students want to be hand-carved in this manner there is no use of a football-, prize-fight-loving nation making any kick.

THE GERMAN WAY.

Heidelberg is a “wet” town. I suppose half the places on the main street are beer-gardens and some of the others are wine-rooms. Everybody in Germany drinks beer and wine. There is this difference between France and Germany: In France the men do most of the drinking as they sit in the sidewalk cafés watching the women go by. In Germany the man brings his wife and children and they all sit around the table in the garden or restaurants and drink beer. They do not seem to get intoxicated. I haven’t seen anyone drunk, although they drink by the wholesale. Beer is high in Heidelberg, up to 2½ cents a quart, but out in the suburbs it is cheaper. I think beer-drinking makes the Germans have bad forms, for men and women get round and fat. But in Germany these forms are considered beautiful, so the sylph-like and the slender are looked down upon. It is an illustration of the fact that it is a good thing we don’t all think alike about such things as personal beauty, or some of us would have to always be away back sitting down.

I have been in Germany a week, and I have not seen a half-dozen men smoking pipes. I thought Germans were great pipe-smokers, but they are not in this part. The Heidelberg pipes are mostly made to sell to Americans and English. The Germans smoke a little the worst cigars I have ever met. They are cheap in price and the Germans consume them in large quantities. The kind the high-class Germans use closely resembles a brand known in our country as “The Pride of the Sewer,” and sells at about two for 5 cents. An American who is accustomed at home to buying “a good nickel cigar” can’t find anything that good in Germany, unless it may be in the big hotels where they cater to American and English trade. I had always had Germans pictured to me as big fat men with long pipes in their mouths, sitting around tables on which were large steins of beer. The beer is here all right, but the men are as bright and energetic as Americans, and they smoke cigars and not pipes.

Another dream gone up in smoke.

It is a great country for castles and “legends.” I think the average yield of legends per acre is larger in Germany than in any other country on earth, especially in the Black Forest and on the Rhine. That is one thing our country is short of—legends. Aside from a few old Indian stories, a tale of woe about the grasshoppers and reminiscences of the Populists, we haven’t anything that approaches the legends which hang on almost every tree in the Black Forest and stick out of every castle-window. And yet Kansas could raise legends as well as Germany, for a legend is nothing but a lie told so often that nobody knows where it started; and Kansas has her share of liars. Here is a sample “legend” from the old castle of Heidelberg which we visited to-day:

A HEIDELBERG LEGEND.

The count of Heidelberg had a beautiful daughter. (They all do—in legends.) Her reputation for beauty went all over Germany and reached the shores of Great Britain. The king of England saw the photograph of the fair lady dressed in her bicycle suit, and instantly fell in love with her. But he did not want the German beauty to marry him for his money and title, so he disguised himself as a cook, got a job in Heidelberg castle and made eyes at the princess. It was a case of two-hearts-that-beat-as-one, and the princess soon began to make dates and meet the supposed cook back of the castle and down on the Neckar. He revealed his real identity to her, but made her promise not to tell. He then went to the old man and asked him for the hand of his daughter. The count laughed at the cook, which made the latter mad and so he blurted out that the maiden loved him. Then the cook skipped out and the count sent for his daughter. She confessed to being in love with the cook, but on account of her promise did not tell his right name. The old count got into an awful rage and ordered his daughter whipped, and the lash was applied so well that the princess died. Before she passed away she told her father who the cook really was, and the count of Heidelberg was truly sorry; but that did no good. A few days later the king of England with an imposing suite arrived to ask the hand of the princess, and when he found out what had happened he took the old man out behind the barn and sliced him up in fine pieces.

There is a song which tells all about this affair, and the music is about as good as the legend.

WORMS AND OTHER THINGS.

Worms, Germany, July 23, 1905.

People do not laugh in Germany when you pronounce the name of this town properly. Say the word as if it were spelled Vorms and give the o the long sound, and you will admit that it is better than the way you used to say it. For many years I have heard of Luther and the Diet of Worms, and being at Heidelberg, only a few miles away, we came here to see Worms, the “Diet,” and to spend Sunday. Four hundred years ago this was quite a town, one of the free cities of the Rhine owing allegiance only to the emperor. It was here that in 1524 Charles V., emperor of Germany, summoned Luther to appear before a congress of princes and imperial electors, and wanted him to fix up a compromise. The emperor of Germany was in a ticklish position. About half of his subjects were loyal to the pope and about half had bolted with Luther. The princes and dukes were divided, and were fighting each other to prove that they were right. The German empire was demoralized with internal dissension and feuds. So Charles thought it would be a smooth thing to get Luther before the august assemblage, induce him to concede some and get the Catholics to concede some, and have a sort of “Missouri compromise.” Luther went to Worms, although he was warned not to do so. As a matter of fact, Luther did not want to separate from the Catholic Church, and his claim was that he wanted to reform it. But after the controversy had continued a few years he kept getting further away, and Charles had made his move too late. Luther laid down certain doctrines which he knew the loyal Catholics could not agree to, and then announced that he took his stand upon them and would not move. The result of the emperor’s effort at peace-making was that each side was a little more infuriated than before, and the war went on.

A hundred years ago Worms had gone down to be a town of only 5,000 inhabitants, but now it has about 40,000 and is a thriving little city. But in spite of the growth and progress in the last century there is still a general air of quaintness and age which makes it very interesting because it is so different. A magnificent monument to Luther is the show feature of the place. On a massive platform ten feet high is the figure of the great reformer, over nine feet high, surrounded by statues of Huss, Savonarola, Wyckliffe and Waldus, and of princes who befriended Luther. A number of German cities are represented by allegorical figures or coats of arms, and the entire group makes an impressive monument and memorial. The palace where Luther met the emperor and princes has been destroyed, but another takes its place and with a right good imagination the tourist can stand where Luther stood, any day between the hours of 11 and 5 o’clock. Strange to say, the town to which Catholics and Protestants came is now controlled by the Jews, who dominate the business interests of Worms as they do those of many other German cities. Worms is on the Rhine river, and the valley of the Rhine is the garden-spot of Germany. Coming over the fertile fields of the Rhine valley is a good deal like riding in the Arkansas valley between Nickerson and Haven, with its rich farms, great orchards and prosperous communities. But in the hundred miles I have traveled along the Rhine I have not seen a reaper or a mower, a sulky rake or any other kind of machinery except a hand-sickle and a hand-rake. I think there are more women at work in the fields than there are men. Perhaps the men are off in the army. Perhaps they are in town drinking beer and talking politics.

Coming from Heidelberg to Worms we had to change trains twice in an hour’s time. Changing trains is no easy job in a foreign country. At Manheim, where the station is as large and as busy as the Union Depot in Kansas City, our incoming train was late and when we arrived our outgoing train was due to leave. With the assistance of a porter I was handling a half-dozen grips and bundles when Mrs. Morgan discovered our train at the other side of the depot. She promptly started across the tracks just as she would at home. I thought there was a revolution or a fire, as a dozen train porters, as many policemen, the station-master and a lot of assistants set up a yell that fairly made the air tremble. The station-master rushed after her, caught up and brought her back, with at least ten men talking vociferously and gesticulating in German. The fact was she had broken the law of the empire. It is not merely violating a railroad rule to cross the track, but it is against the criminal law and punishable by a jail sentence. Of course they didn’t do anything to Americans, but if a German should cross the tracks where it was forbidden they wouldn’t do a thing to him! They actually held that train five minutes after time while we made a circuit of the station to the other side, when we could have sensibly and reasonably have been allowed to cross the track in a half-minute.

Speaking of railroads and the management makes me think of the conductors. I have ridden first-class, second-class and third-class in Germany. When the conductor enters the first-class carriage to see the tickets, he takes off his cap and says in German: “If you please, will you me your tickets show?” When he comes into the second-class carriage he says: “Tickets, if you please,” and when you hand them over he gives them back with a military salute, but keeps his cap on. When he comes into the third-class carriage he simply says: “Tickets!”

When the train starts out of the station the station-master (dressed in a gorgeous uniform) stands on the platform at a salute until the last car passes him. This is a very pretty custom, and I think the station agents at Hutchinson ought to be required to put on their uniforms and salute the trains.

The almost universal custom in Germany is to eat out-of-doors in the summer-time. The hotels have spacious porches or gardens, and there we eat breakfast, dinner, and supper. (They have dinner at noon and supper in the evening in Germany.) There are no flies, and there seems to be but little wind, so you can eat comfortably in the open air and not swallow too much that is not on the bill of fare. It is a sensible and delightful custom. After the evening meal at the hotels or restaurants everybody stays at the table for an hour or so, and there is music by the orchestra or band. The only good feature I can see to the German army is that it provides nearly every city with a fine band which gives concerts frequently. The cities and towns usually support bands, and most of them own theatres and opera-houses. I think we have attended a band concert every evening since we entered Germany, and we could go in the afternoon if we had time.

By the way, right here in Worms, in the part of the city that looks about as it did in Luther’s time, we were wandering down a narrow street when we were stopped by familiar music, the popular two-step, “Whistling Rufus.” The German bands play a great deal of American music, mostly Sousa’s marches or our “ragtime,” and it always gets an encore. At Heidelberg the military band played “Hiawatha.” For two years it has been almost against the law in the United States to play “Hiawatha.” But the Germans liked it. I don’t think the German bands play ragtime properly. They go at it seriously, as they do the selections from Wagner and such like which make up most of the program. They add a good deal of noise and they do not get the “swing” that is given by American musicians.

I have discovered in Germany that Wagner and his kind of composers wrote a lot of good music that never gets across the water, the kind that has tune to it,—not so much tune as Sousa’s pieces, but a good deal more than is ever rendered in the United States. And I suppose the German bands understand Wagnerian music better than the American bands, just as Sousa can direct a better two-step or march than a German conductor. A German municipal band or military band, such as plays every night in one of the public parks in every city, is as good a band as Sousa or Innes ever took on the road. I am not a musical critic, I am thankful to say. I like music whether it is good, bad, or indifferent. I like grand opera some and light opera a great deal. I enjoy a fine band or a poor one, a selection from Chopin or a street piano. I will follow a band, a drum corps or a bagpipe all over town. I am even fond of the “Blue Bells of Scotland.” Probably my recommendations will not be accepted by all the musical experts at home after these admissions, but I can’t keep from saying that German band music is the best in this world to which I have been introduced.

I have written of the growing use of the English-American language on the continent of Europe. Here at Worms we are stopping at a very Dutch hotel. When the waiter came for the first time I went to work in German. The construction of a supper bill of fare in German is not easy for me, but I tackled the job bravely. I know enough German to order meat and potatoes, but my pronunciation is ragged on the edges and my verbs are not hitched right and the genders of the nouns are only likely to be right one guess in three. After I had floundered along for about three minutes the waiter gravely and politely interrupted: “Won’t you please give me the order in English?”

RICH OLD FRANKFORT.

Frankfort, Germany, July 24, 1905.

This is one of the old and wealthy cities of Germany, with 300,000 people and a fine country around about. It is the place the Rothschilds came from. A few years ago when the Populists were pretty much the whole thing in Kansas and to be against them was to be in the pay of the Rothschilds and the Great Red Dragon, I was on the Rothschilds’ side, and never having received any compensation I thought I would call and see what was the matter. It was no trouble to find the Rothschild house, for it is described in every guidebook and is marked by an inscription on the front. The morning after we reached the city we went to formally make a call, and found the place to be an old and unpretentious building. I rang the bell and asked the little girl who came to the door if Mr. Rothschild was at home. She ran away and I went on in and part way up the stairs, when a man appeared and said “fifty pfennig.” I told him I was an old friend and merely wished to pay my respects—pay nothing else, not even fifty pfennig. I talked English and he talked German, but I had no difficulty in understanding that it would cost me 12½ cents American money to go through the house. This I declined to do, and unless the gentleman who wanted the fifty pfennig tells Mr. Rothschild I don’t suppose he will ever know I came. In fact, I was afterward told that none of the present members of the Rothschild family live in Frankfort, but have their homes in Vienna, Paris, and London, where they dictate the financial policy of the world. Only a little over a hundred years ago the law of Frankfort was that every night at sundown and on Sundays and feast days all Jews must stay in their own part of town, and the gates inclosing their section were locked until the following day. As an illustration of how rapidly the wheel of fortune turns I was told that now, although comprising but one-tenth of the population, the Jews handle three-fourths of the business, own over half the real estate, and hold most of the high and responsible positions in Frankfort, where their great grandfathers had no more show than a rabbit.

Goethe, the great German poet, was born in Frankfort, and we visited the house of his birth and boyhood. His father was a lawyer, but the poet could not help that. Young Goethe was a bright lad, and took to writing poetry as readily as he did to going with the girls; and he kept at both occupations all his life. A petty German prince took him under his patronage and Goethe never had to work for a living, so he went on writing poetry and having a good time until he died at the age of 83 years. The Germans love Goethe as the Americans do Longfellow, for he was a poet who loved his country, his countrymen and his country-women, and his works are full of sweet and patriotic sentiment as well as being beautiful in construction. Goethe and his friend Schiller and the literary crowd which followed their lead, made the German language classical and correct, and occupy the same place in German literature that Shakespeare does in English. The “Goethe house” here is under the charge of a historical society, and has been put in the same shape that it was when Goethe was a boy. It is an interesting place, for it is not only full of mementoes of the poet but of the time in which he lived.

The most interesting public buildings I have seen in Germany are here, the “Roemer,” a name applied to a group of twelve old and picturesque houses. In one of these the electors of the German empire (certain hereditary princes) would assemble to elect an emperor whenever there was a vacancy. After the election they would have a banquet and the fountain in the public square would run with red and white wine while the people cheered and drank the health of the new man. This was calculated to make the emperor very popular at least that night, but I wonder if the people were so enthusiastic when the headache came the next morning. These old buildings are well preserved. In fact, Frankfort is a city which takes good care of itself and is like a prosperous man. The most beautiful public garden I have seen is here, the Palm Garden, and a fine military band gives concerts afternoon and evening. Frankfort is not only well off, but old enough to enjoy the fact, and everywhere the city is made to look as handsome and be as comfortable as possible. The best and cheapest eating in Europe is in Frankfort, and that fact has made a deep and lasting impression on my heart.

It is doubtless repeating what has been said before, but I cannot help wonder at the industry of the German farmers. Of course they were raised right on the place, and their fathers and forefathers were farmers. They probably don’t know anything else, and never expect to sell out and move to town. In this fertile Rhine country, where there seems to be a model climate, they irrigate the land as if it were arid and they fertilize and drain and cultivate with the hoe and rake. I never believed the story, but it is true. The wealth of a German farmer can be gauged by the size of the manure-pile in his front yard. No doubt when a German farmer brags on what he has done he does not refer to the purchase of a quarter-section of pasture land in the next township, but points with pride to the large and luxuriant heap of fertilizing substance which he can call his own. Instead of farming more land, he tries to get more out of what he has than he did, and his attempt is a success. He does not have a herd of cattle, but he has one or a half-dozen cows which live in the other end of the house, and are curried, fed and looked after as carefully as members of the family, perhaps more so. The cattle are good-looking, smooth and polished, evidently well bred, and certainly well taken care of. They are much better in appearance than the average of American cattle, but the care bestowed upon them easily accounts for the fact.

Frankfort is geographically in Hesse, the old state from which George III. hired soldiers to fight the Americans. In the good old times a little over a hundred years ago, a German prince who was hard up for cash would rent out his soldiers to fight and be shot at. The pay went to the prince, not to the soldier. It is hard to believe that such things occurred only a comparatively short time ago, and yet they did. The Hessians did not understand American tactics and were not much of a success in our Revolution, but they were always good fighters in German wars, and the little state was a powerful one. Frankfort was a “free city,” and not under the active rule of the Hessian princes. For 500 years it kept its independence of any local prince, but in 1866 it was annexed to Prussia. The time for the independent cities of Europe was ended.

Besides Rothschild and Goethe, Frankfort is noted for the Frankfurter sausages. I was pleased to find that this was no legend. In Bologna, Italy, I was surprised to find no bologna, but Frankfort stood the test. There is also a house where it is said Luther preached a sermon while on his way to Worms. It is a tobacco-shop now.

In every German city there is an old bridge with a history. The old bridge at Frankfort across the Main river, which is a good big river and lined with freight boats, is mentioned in a document of 1222. It is constructed of red sandstone, and looks as if it would easily stand 700 years more. A bridge like that is really worth more than an art gallery. The legend connected with the bridge is not so bad. It seems that the architect who drew the plans and supervised the construction had made a mistake in his calculations. He came to realize that the span would not hold weight, and he could see the ruin of the bridge and his own reputation mighty close at hand. Of course he was in a terrible state of mind, and when he was at his worst the Devil dropped in to see him. The Devil offered to show him how the defect could be remedied, the bridge built and his reputation saved, if he would sign a contract that the first who crossed the bridge should become the Devil’s property. The poor architect at first nobly refused, as most men do when tempted, and then fell, as men occasionally do. He signed the contract, the Devil pointed out the correction in the plan, and the great bridge was successfully finished. Then the architect had remorse (they always do afterward), and nearly went wild with thinking of what he had done. But the day the bridge was formally finished and turned over, before the mayor and city council could get into their carriages after the dedicating speeches, a rooster broke loose from a chicken-house, ran down the road, across the bridge and went to the Devil. Of course the Devil kicked, but the architect stood on the letter of the contract, and they all lived happy forever afterward. This legend is undoubtedly true, for on the middle of the bridge is an iron cross with a figure of Christ and on top of the cross is a bronze rooster.

DOWN THE RHINE.

Cologne, Germany, July 29, 1905.

The words “Down the Rhine” have a strong significance to everyone who has read history, poetry, or romance. From the time when Cæsar crossed the Rhine to punish the warlike tribes for invading Gaul, down to the Franco-German war of 1870, every European war has been fought more or less in the valley of the Rhine. And for 2,000 years whenever the nations of Europe were not marching their armies to the Rhine, the petty princes, potentates and powers of the valley were fighting one another. The Rhine is the dividing line in Europe. Those who have read these letters to The News will appreciate the fact that instead of going to the large cities of Munich, Berlin and Hanover, we began with the Rhine as it flowed out of Lake Constance and plunged over the falls at Neuhausen, and have followed it through the Black Forest and Germany on its way “down north” to the sea, and will finally watch it mingle its blue into the great salt water at Rotterdam and The Hague.

The last two days we have traveled by boat from Biebrich to Cologne, that part of the river which is called the scenic or “the castled Rhine,” the part of which poets have sung and around which history and fiction have woven stories and legends in every language. But the Rhine is not only useful for the poet and the historian; it is also a plain business proposition. I am told and I believe that the Rhine carries more traffic than any other river in the world. It flows through a rich agricultural country, is lined with important cities, and especially with manufacturing places. Freight rates on the water are cheap. Products of the farm or vineyard, the shop or mill, placed on the boats, are carried with only one transfer to all the great markets of the world.

And now imagine the beautiful Rhine gliding among high hills, with every few miles a handsome castle or the picturesque ruins of one, with a busy railroad running on each bank, passenger and freight trains as frequent as suburban trains near Chicago, and two endless processions of steamboats, tugs and barges, one going up and one going down. That is the Rhine of to-day. The hills and castles reminiscent of the past, the black smoke of the furnaces and the shrill whistle of the engine the reminders of the present. You have to shut your eyes to see either the historic or the beautiful and keep them from “telescoping” into the practical present. And I will admit that the boats and the boatmen, the passengers and the freight interested me more than the dead-walls and the ivy-covered towers. If you think it over you will realize how castles and ruins pall upon your taste. When we began the trip we would rush from one side of the boat to the other to see a castle and hardly went below for lunch for fear we might miss a lofty summit or a breasted fortress. At the close of the trip a broken-down abbey or a roofless castle had no charms that would compare with a comfortable seat and a cigar. I remember well one of the last and largest castles we passed, one I had read of and looked forward to seeing. A friend enthusiastically exclaimed: “There is the Drachenfels on the other side!” And my coarse nature revolted, and I murmured that if the Drachenfels wanted me to see it, the Drachenfels would have to come around to my side of the boat. My neck was tired.

Really a homeopathic dose of Rhine castles would be very interesting. A thousand years ago some baron would build a big stone fortress high up on a hill overlooking the Rhine, and up to the discovery of gunpowder it was practically impregnable. The baron and his followers, according to the rules of the game, would divide their time between rescuing lovely maidens from giants and robbing the merchants and traders who passed by. I never heard of a knight or baron who worked for a living. History is filled with tales of deeds the old knights did for religion or for some fair lady, but it is silent or passes over lightly the fact that they made their money by robbery and murder, disguised under the name of expeditions, crusades, knight-errantry, and war. But when the inventive genius of man made a gun that would shoot through armor and discovered that gunpowder could knock down forts, the days of chivalry and highway robbery on the Rhine were over. The merchants and artisans no longer had to hire armies to protect their property and their families, and the rule of force was followed by the rule of shrewdness, a change which may not have brought perfection, but has resulted in a show of decency, fairness and honesty.

A few old castles transported from the Rhine to Cow creek or the Kaw would be helpful to the landscape of Kansas. But there would be no use of stringing them out for a hundred miles. A castle a thousand years old is interesting, always provided your imagination is good. The best way to enjoy castles is to believe everything the books and guides tell you. I am getting fascinated with the legends, although I think I can unfasten. Now here is a choice legend of the castles of the Two Brothers, which stand on neighboring hills and which I saw early:

THE TWO BROTHERS.

Once upon a time there were two brothers, both as valiant and noble knights as ever wore armor or robbed a traveler. Unfortunately they fell in love with the same girl, and as she couldn’t accept both and had to say she would “always be a sister” to the other, the tension in the family circle got very tight. Finally the elder brother saw that the maiden loved the younger best, so he put his broken heart in his pocket, gave the pair his blessing and lit out for the crusades. In those days whenever a man lost out in love or was in danger of being hung for crime, he went to the crusades. The younger brother was very happy for a while, but he happened to visit another country and there he fell in love with another girl, just as much and as eternally in love with her as with the first one. The second girl was wise or else she had been warned of the young man’s record, for she announced the engagement and the marriage followed soon. Girl No. 1 went to a convent with an aching heart, everybody settled down, and even the neighbors quit talking. Just at that time the elder brother returned from the crusades, and when he heard what had happened he thought it was awful. He went to his brother’s castle and challenged him to fight a duel. The younger brother was worked up over the interference of the family in his private affairs and was anxious to fight. The two knights met in a plum-patch back of the convent and prepared to settle which was right. Just as they drew their swords the original girl, who had been informed of what was going on by some busybody, rushed out of the gate, threw herself between the brothers and begged them not to fight for her sake. She made such a good talk that they shook hands and took a drink together as a sign that it was all over. The elder brother offered to marry the girl in the convent, but she refused. The wife of the younger brother ran off with another chivalrous knight and the two brothers were left alone in the world. They built the two castles side by side, and spent all their days together hunting deer and wealthy travelers, and died without ever flirting with another woman (so the legend says). The ruins of the two castles side by side are evidence of the truth of the story.

THE LEGEND OF COW CREEK.

“Fair Bingen on the Rhine” was somewhat of a disappointment. Thousands and tens of thousands of American girls and boys have stood up in front of the school on Friday afternoons, scared stiff with the awful prospect of forgetting the next word, and told their school-mates:

“A soldier of the legion lay dying in Algiers,

There was lack of woman’s nursing,

There was dearth of woman’s tears.”

And when the same moon shone there that shone on fair Bingen on the Rhine, those countless American youths have breathed a sigh for the soldier and several sighs over getting through. Bingen is a good sort of manufacturing town, and the fact that the poet selected the name because of its rhythm and not because it fitted the situation accounts for the success of the poem. After some reflection on the subject among the storied regions of Europe I have come to the conclusion that it is the romancer and the singer who make a country great and interesting, and not any special merit of the place itself. If Cow creek had a few legend-writers in a few years it would rank with the Rhine, the Black Forest, and even the fields of old England. How would this do for a Cow creek legend, a la Europe?

LEGEND OF COW CREEK.

Once upon a time there lived on the creek a wealthy old farmer who had a beautiful daughter. The fame of her beauty spread all the way to Sterling and down to Pretty Prairie, and many young men aspired to the honor of her hand in marriage. Among those who loved her was a neighbor boy who had nothing to his credit but a good name and a rare ability to make speeches before the literary society which met every other Friday night at the school-house. As the good name was no good on a check, he knew the old farmer would not listen to his suit but would likely kick him into the middle of next week if he asked him for his daughter. So all the poor young man could do was to see her home occasionally after church and talk about the soulfulness of love and the communion of congenial souls. The young lady really preferred the aforesaid young man, but as she did not want to undertake the job of making a living for two or more, and she knew her father would never consent to taking him to board, she could only sigh and pine and sit in the shade of a cottonwood tree and dream of love. At last the father told his beautiful daughter that he had selected a husband for her, a man from Nickerson, a man who owned two sections of land and a lot of oil stock, but who could not tell the difference between true love and a pain in his side. That night the two young people met down by the creek bank and she told him of the fate in store for her unless he got a move on himself. Their plan was formed. That night the lover braced himself with a good “bracer” and met the maiden behind the barn. Away they went toward the county seat with high hopes and enough cash to purchase a marriage license. Suddenly they heard the gentle murmur of the father, who had discovered the elopers and was telling the people for miles around what he would do to the son of a gun who was running off with his daughter. It was a race for love and for life, but the old man was getting the best of it and the lovers could hear him as he was overtaking them. They came to the creek, which was on its annual flood, and then they gave themselves up for lost. But the young man happened to look around and saw an old cow. An idea came into his head. He drove the cow into the creek and each of them grabbed her tail. She swam straight to the other side while the old man stood on the bank cursing a blue streak. Away they went to town and were married by the probate judge before the flood went down and the old man could get across.

There was nothing for the father to do but to give them his blessing and eighty acres of sand-hill land, on which they lived happily ever afterward. The stream which thus saved the lives and loves of those two young people has been called Cow creek ever since.

If the people of Kansas will take a few stories like the above, have them trimmed up and embellished, tell them to visitors and charge admission to see the relics, they will have as good a collection of legends as ever grew on the Rhine.

COLOGNE WATER AND OTHERS.

Cologne, Germany, July 29, 1905.

This is the place the eau de cologne habit started. There are over forty manufacturers who advertise themselves as “the original house” that first made this perfumed water. A few miles below here on the Rhine is the Apollinaris spring. I always supposed Apollinaris water came from the drug store, but there really is an original spring. It got its name from St. Apollinaris, who was a prominent church-worker a thousand years ago, and had his head chopped off by the heathen. The head is still preserved in a church and his name goes marching on with a label on the bottle. The highest cathedral I have seen in Europe is at Cologne, the top of the spire being 510 feet above the ground. It is a beautiful cathedral of Gothic architecture. The plans were made and a good part of the structure completed about eight hundred years before it was finished, the latter part of the job being done only a few years ago. The legend of the beginning of the cathedral is very authentic. The architect had spent several years on the drawings, but was not able to finish them satisfactorily to himself or the building committee. One night he had a dream, and in the vision saw just what had been lacking. But when he awoke he could not remember the design, and as is usual in such cases he said he would give anything to have it. The Devil promptly showed up and offered to reveal the wonderful plan if the architect would sign a contract to give in payment his own soul and also the soul of the first who should enter the church after it was completed. The architect tried to beat the Devil down on the price, but could not, and finally signed. The Devil lived up to his part of the contract, and the completed plans were so beautiful that the church authorities and the emperor and the city council were unanimous in declaring the architect the greatest man in his profession. As the church neared completion the architect began to worry. He took to drink, and went around carousing so that his friends thought he was crazy. Finally he confessed to the archbishop and it got into the newspapers, so the community was stirred up. No one was willing to be the first to go into the church, and yet if the great cathedral was to amount to anything, somebody must enter it. Finally a bad woman who was confined in jail sent word to the church board that she would be the victim. After due deliberation, and believing that she would go to the Devil anyhow, they accepted her offer. The day of dedication came. The people gathered from far and near. A carriage drove from the police station and backed up to the church door. Out of the wagon and into the building dashed a female form and the Devil in great glee grabbed, and broke its neck. But it was only a pig which the smart bad woman had fixed up in her clothes. So the Devil was cheated, the cathedral was dedicated, and all went right except for the architect, who was found with a broken neck and smelling of sulphur, for the Devil in his rage didn’t do a thing to him.

Cologne has over 300,000 inhabitants and is a very busy city. This morning we went to the market. The grocery stores in Cologne and in all the German cities I have visited practically never keep green groceries. Everything of that kind is bought at the public market, which is a very interesting sight. From all the country around come the farmers and the farmers’ wives with the produce of the garden, and from all over the city come the housewives or the maids, each with a big basket. The trading is brisk, and as it is nearly all done by women on both sides, there is some talk and the shopping habit is seen in all its glory. Then there is the fish market, the flower market, the poultry market, and even the old-clothes market. I am sure that in the big market-house and on the streets and the square in Cologne this morning there were two thousand vendors of goods, from potatoes to second-hand hats and from luscious fruit to old candle-sticks,—nearly everything conceivable that could be brought to the open-air market and sold. The market is still retained in a few old American towns, but to me it is a novelty with a never-fading charm, and in nearly every city where I have stopped the market has been a sight that I did not miss.

Next to the market the restaurant or beer-and wine-garden is the place to see the people. The Germans eat breakfast, dinner at noon, supper at 6 o’clock, and once more about 10 o’clock. From 7 o’clock to 10 o’clock the whole family sits in the public garden drinking beer or wine (not much, but long), listening to the music and getting hungry for the fourth meal of the day. There are restaurants everywhere—in the public buildings, the art galleries, the churches, on the sidewalks, and in the parks. I have not been to a German cemetery, but I would confidently expect to find there a garden with tables where one could get something to eat and drink.

The valley of the Rhine for more than a hundred miles is one vast vineyard, and the word valley includes the hillsides. The hills are high. The vines begin close to the water’s edge, the vineyards being sometimes terraced and sometimes on a slope so steep that the men and women who cultivate them must wear climbers like telegraph linemen. It is a beautiful sight at this season of the year with the lofty heights clothed in green and pointing up into the blue sky, with brown old ruined taverns and castles and white châteaus and villas here and there among the green. One would wonder what could be done with all the grapes that must come from such a great vineyard if he did not look around him and see everybody drinking the juice and evidently endeavoring to keep pace with the production. At Coblentz the Moselle river joins the Rhine, and it is another charming valley full of history, poetry and grapes. Coblentz is old and quaint, with narrow streets, old-fashioned people, and the appearance of ancient days. On this trip I have seen a good deal of the German people. The class distinctions are about all that make them different from Americans. The poor folks always expect to be poor and do not move around with the aggressive action that ours do. I suppose I talked with a hundred, and every one of them wanted to come to America. Mechanics and artisans, very skillful, are not altogether satisfied with conditions, and they, too, talk America. But the great middle class of farmers and merchants are as full of patriotism and conceit as are true American citizens. They think Germany is the greatest nation on earth, and that all the countries will eventually admit the fact and take subordinate places. They don’t like America or England, and they expect sometime to have war with us unless we give up easier than they anticipate. The typical German is not slow or easy-going, as he is often painted, but is energetic, pushing and “chesty.” He thinks Germany can lick the United States with one hand tied behind, and is ready to have the work begin any time. In fact, Germans are just as offensively and ignorantly patriotic as are Americans, which is saying a good deal, for Americans in Europe nearly always go around with a chip on either shoulder, daring somebody to knock it off.

But the Germans are gentlemen. For the first time since I left Paris I saw men in the street cars give their seats to ladies. In Italy the rule is for the man to have first consideration. It makes American women furious when they meet Italian men on the narrow sidewalks to have to get off into the streets and let the gentlemen pass by. But they must do it or the men will simply walk over them. In Germany the women in the country work in the fields and in the cities they are in the shops and offices more than in the United States, but they are treated decently and politely. The German is in fact more polite than the Frenchman. He even tips his hat to his man friends. If I go into a store to buy a cigar the proprietor or clerk who waits on me will say “good-morning” and “good-by.” They do this with one another, and do not keep their company manners for strangers. German hotels are the best in Europe, and one of the customs is during the meal at hotel or restaurant for the proprietor to walk around and pleasantly greet his patrons, whether he knows them or not, on the comfortable theory that they are his guests. Germans are always willing to guide and advise strangers and they don’t take “tips,” at least not any more than in America. Germany is wealthy and prosperous as a nation and the Germans one meets when traveling are about the best folks you find in Europe.

In Germany a landlord advertises his hotel as “first-class” or “second-class.” The second-class hotels are clean and good, but they have some mighty funny names. I had learned in England not to get worried over the signs of “The Red Lion,” “The White Bull,” etc. But German hotel-keepers go still further. They name their places after animals of all kinds and colors, and often saints and imaginary creatures. The Golden Calf, The Winged Lion, The House of the Weaned Calf, The Wild Man, were some of the names, but at Heidelberg one extreme was reached by the “Hotel Jesus,” and at Worms the other extreme by the “Hotel of the Two Pairs of Drawers.” I suppose every name has a story or a legend behind it and the name is a valuable asset of the property. Speaking of names reminds me that here in Cologne the street that leads to the market-place is called “Kingdom of Heaven street,” and not far away is the “Grace of God street.” I can see how these names might be properly used in Kansas, but they are out of place in Cologne.