Seriously, the Hamburger toils earnestly, and takes his pleasure with a proportionate amount of zeal. His enjoyments, like his labours, are of a strong and solid description. The workmen trundle kegle balls in long, wooden-built alleys; and down in deep beer cellars, snug and warm, do they cluster, fondling their pipes like favoured children; taking long gulps of well-made punch, or deeper draughts of Bairisches beer. If they talk, they do so vehemently, but they love better to sit and listen to some little troop of harfenisten—street harp-players—as they tone the waltzes of Lanner, or sing some chivalrous romance. Sometimes they form themselves into bands of choristers, and sing with open windows into the street, or play at billiards as if it were for life, or congregate in the dance-houses, and waltz by the hour without a pause. In all they are hearty, somewhat boisterous, but never wanting in good temper.
As marriage is out of the question with the workman in Hamburg, whether stranger or native—unless indeed the latter may have passed through the probationary course of travel and conscription, and be already on the verge of mastership—so also is honourable courtship. His low wages and dependent position form an impassable barrier to wedlock, and a married journeyman is almost unknown. By the law of his native city he must travel for two or three years, independently of the chances of conscription, and thus for a period at least he becomes a restless wanderer, without tie or home. No prudent maiden can listen to his addresses, and thus it is that Hamburg swarms with unfortunates; and this it is which gives them rights and immunities unknown in any other city.
CHAPTER V.
plays and piccadilloes.—“hamlet” in german.
It is Sunday again. Soberly and sedately do we pass our morning hours. We waken with the sweet music of bells in our ears; bells that whisper to us of devotion; bells that thrill us with a calm delight, and raise up in us thoughts of gentleness and charity.
There is no lack of churches; we see their tapering steeples and deep gable roofs rising above the general level in many places, and there is a Little Bethel down by the water’s side on the Vorsetzen, for the sailors. There are two or three Little Pandemoniums in its immediate vicinity, or at least by that classical title are they designated by the Bethlemites over the way; but salt-water Jack and fresh-river Jack give them much simpler names, and like them a great deal better, more’s the pity. We have heard the little jangling bells in the church pews, and they will not ring in tune, although they tell the deeds of charity; we have marched staidly home, and joined in Herr Sorgenpfennig’s blessing over the midday meal;—Herr Sorgenpfennig delivers it with the presence and intonation of an Eastern patriarch, standing among his tribe;—and the delicacies of German cookery having fulfilled their purpose and disappeared, with a whispered grace and a bow of humbleness, we sidle out of the room, and leave the “Herr Meister” to his meditations and his punch. And so ends the service of the day.
The blond-headed Bavarian begins to hum the last Tafelliêd, and our quiet Dane smiles reservedly. “Whither, friends, shall we bend our steps?” No! by the eternal spirit of modesty, we will not visit the dance-houses to-day! Those vile shambles by the water-side, growing out of the slime and filth of the river, and creeping like a noxious, unwholesome weed, up the shaded hill, and by narrow ruts and gullies into the open country. No! Those half-draped, yet gaping doors, have no attractions for us; those whining notes of soulless music find no echo in our ears or hearts. There, in their hideous blandishments, the shameless sit, miserable in their
tawdriness, their painted cheeks peeling in the hot sun, which they cannot shut out if they would. Throughout the long day the wearied minstrels pant over their greasy tubes of brass, or scrape their grimy instruments with horny fingers, praying for the deep night; and there, through the long day, does the echoing floor rebound with the beating of vigorous feet; for salt-water Jack is there, and fresh-river Jack is there, and while there is a copper pfennig in their pockets, or a flicker of morality in their hearts, doomed are they equally; for what can escape spoliation or wreck among such a crowd?
Yet from such commodities as these does the merchant spirit of the Senate of Hamburg draw huge profits; indeed, it is said that the whole expense of police and city, and what is worse, yet better, the tending of the sick, the feeding of the poor, and the succouring of the helpless and desolate, are alike defrayed from the produce of the city’s vice; and let us add, the Senate’s fostering care of it.
And if we wandered out beyond the walls to the right or to the left, what do we find? On the one hand, “Peter Hund’s;” on the other “Unkraut’s Pavilion;” mere dance-houses, after all, though for “the better sort.” “Peter” has a tawdry hall, smeared with the escutcheons of all nations, where music and waltzing whirl through the dense air, hour after hour; and what is at least of equal consequence to him, Peter holds a tavern in the next room, where spirits, beer, or coffee are equally at the command of the drouthy or the luxuriant. And so also if we followed the road which passes through Stein Thor, away across the leafy fringing of trees and shrubs which ornament the city’s outline; and still on through the shady avenues of youthful stems, when we come upon a great house with deep overhanging eaves, square-topped chimneys, and altogether with a Swiss air about it. There are idlers hanging about the door, for this is “Unkraut’s,” and the brisk air of musical instruments streams out of the open portal. Within all is motion and uproar. A large salle de danse occupies the greater part of the ground floor, the central portion of which is appropriated to the waltzers, while a broad slip on each side, beneath an overhanging gallery, running round the whole of the apartment, remains for those who drink, or take a temporary repose. Sometimes, however, the flood of waltzers pours in upon the side-tables, amid the clatter of chairs, the ringing of glass and china, and the laughter of the spectators. Gentlemen are not allowed to dance with their hats on; (where else, in Heaven’s name, can they place them?) and must lay their heavy pipes and cigars aside, as