BEER AND MUSIC.
Where German is spoken three things are always found, music, wine and beer. Bacchus, Gambrinus and Orpheus go hand in hand, and they engross the German mind about equally. Zurich has more music to the square foot than any of the Swiss cities, and the other two members of the trinity are by no means neglected.
TIBBITTS IN A CONCERT HALL, ZURICH.
The Tonhalle is a spacious building finely decorated with rare plants and flowers, and brilliantly lighted with gas jets springing from artificial palm trees. Here the good citizens of Zurich spend an evening of perfect enjoyment. An orchestra of seventy pieces, each performer a trained musician, renders a programme of classical and popular music, in the most perfect manner. The vast audience, composed of ladies and gentlemen of the best standing, sit around the little round tables sipping their light wine or beer, listening to the music and, during the intervals, chatting and laughing and thoroughly enjoying themselves. There is a something about such an evening that is irresistable. The perfect order that prevails, the exquisite music, the brilliancy of the room, all combined to make it a perfect delight. Night after night—the programme is never twice alike—the Tonhalle is crowded with the wealth and fashion of Zurich, people of refinement and culture, who can fully appreciate and enjoy the delightful music.
There is one custom which obtains all over Germany, and especially in Zurich, which is a German city in reality, which custom I would could be transplanted in all its native vigor to America; and that is the carrying of the family relation into amusement as well as business.