WORKMEN IN HAMBURG.
Here amid the implements of labor, in the dingy _werkstube_ in Johannis
Strasse; lighted by the single flicker of an oil lamp, with the workboard
for a writing-desk, let me endeavour to collect some few scattered
details about the German workmen in Hamburg.
German workmen! do not the very words recall to your memory old
amber-coloured engravings of sturdy men, with waving locks, grasping the
arm of the printing-press, by the side of Faust, Schoeffer, and
Gottenberg? Or, perhaps, the words of Schiller's "Song of the Bell" may
not be unknown to you, and hum in your ears:
Frisch, gesellen, seyd zur hand!
Von der stirne heiss,
Rinnen muss der schweiss.
Briskly, comrades to your work!
From the flushing brow
Must the sweatdrops flow.
But your modern German workman is somewhat of a different stamp; he
points his moustaches with black wax, trims his locks _a la Francaise_,
and wears wide pantaloons. He tapers his waist with a leathern strap,
and wears a blouse while at his labors. He discards old forms and
regulations as far as he can or dare, and thus the old word "Meister" has
fallen into disrepute, and the titles "Herr" and "Principal" occupy its
place. Schiller, like a true poet, calls his workmen "gesellen," which
is the old German word meaning companion or comrade, but modern
politeness has changed it into "gehulfe," assistant; and "mitglied,"
member. In some places, however, the words "knecht" and "knappe,"
servant or attendant, are still in use to signify journeyman; as
"schusterknecht," shoemaker; "schlachterknecht," butcher's man;
"muhlknappe," miller; "bergknappe," miner; but these terms are employed
more from habit than from any invidious distinction.
Well! we live and work on the fourth floor of a narrow slip of a house in
Johannis Strasse. Herr Sorgenpfennig, our "principal," occupies the
suite of four rooms, and devotes a central one (to which no light can
possibly come save at second hand through the door), to his "gesellen."
We are three; a quiet Dane, full of sage precepts, and practical
illustrations of economy; a roystering Bavarian from Nuremberg, who never
fails to grieve over the thin beer of Hamburg, and who, as member of a
choral union near Das Johanneum, delights in vigorous and unexpected
bursts of song; and myself.
Workmen in Hamburg are still in a state of villanage; beneath the roof of
the "Herr" do they find at once a workshop, a dormitory, and a home. We
endeavour so far to conform to the rules of propriety as to escape the
imprisonment and other penalties that await the "unruly journeyman." The
table of Herr Sorgenpfennig is our own, and a very liberal one it is
esteemed to be. Let me sketch you a few of its items: delicious coffee,
"white bread and brown," or rather black, and unlimited butter, make up
our breakfast. Dinner always commences with a soup, usually made from
meat, sometimes from herbs, lemon, sweet fruit, or other ingredients
utterly indescribable. Meat, to be fit for a German table, must be
carefully pared of every vestige of fat; if boiled it is underdone,
unless expressly devoted to the soup, when the juiceless shreds that
remain are served up with plums or prepared vegetables; if it be baked
(roasting is almost unknown) it is dry and tasteless. Bacon and
sausages, with their inevitable accompaniment, sourkraut, is a favourite
dish; but not so unvaryingly so as some choose to imagine. Acids
generally are much admired in German cookery. In nothing, perhaps, are
the Hamburgers more to be envied, in a gastronomic view, than in their
vegetables. Singularly small as are these products of the kitchen
garden, they are sweeter and more delicately flavoured than any I ever
tasted elsewhere. As _entremets_, and as accompaniments to meat, they
are largely consumed. The Hamburgers laugh at the English cooks who boil
green peas and potatoes in plain water, for here boiled potatoes are
scarcely known--that nutritious vegetable being cut into slices and
fried; while green peas are slowly stewed in butter or cream, and
sweetened with fine sugar. But we "gesellen" have plebeian appetites,
and whatever dish may be set before us, as surely vanishes to its latest
shred. The little patches of puff-paste, smeared with preserve, sent to
us as Sunday treat, or the curious production in imitation of our English
pie, and filled with maccaroni, are immolated at once without misgiving
or remorse. If we sup at all, it is upon pasty, German cheese, full of
holes, as if it had been made in water, or a hot liver sausage, as an
extraordinary indulgence.
And our "Licht Braten?" Herr Sorgenpfennig rubs his short, fat hands,
and his round eyes twinkle again, as he tells his little cluster of
"Herren Gesellen" that there will be a feast, a sumptuous _abendbrod_, to
inaugurate the commencement of candle-light. The "Licht Braten," as this
entertainment is called, is one of the old customs of Hamburg now falling
into disuse. It would be doing Herr Sorgenpfennig an eternal injustice
did we pass over it in silence, more especially as he boasts of it as
real "North German fare." Here we have it: raw herrings to begin with.
Bah! I confess this does not sound well upon the first blush; but, then,
a raw dried herring is somewhat different to one salted in a barrel. To
cook it would be a sacrilege, say the Germans. And then the
accompaniments! We have two dishes of wonderful little potatoes, baked
in an oven, freshly peeled and shining; and in the centre of the table is
a bowl of melted butter and mustard well mixed together. You dip your
potato in the butter, and while you thus soften the deep-sea saltness of
your herring, the rough flavour of the latter relishes and overcomes the
unctuous dressing of your potato. I swear to you it is delicious!
But where is our "braten," the "roast," in fact? Oh, thou unhappy Peter!
I see thee still, reeking over the glowing forge fire, cooking savoury
sausages thou art forbidden to taste! I see thee still, struggling in
vain to "bolt" the blazing morsel, rashly plucked (in the momentary
absence of Sorgenpfennig), from the bubbling, hissing fat, and thrust
into thy jaws. Those burning tears! those mad distortions of limb and
feature! God pity thee, Peter, but it was not to be! Those savoury
sausages are our "braten," and they smack wonderfully after the herrings.
If there is one item in our repast to be deplored, it is the Hamburger
beer, which, however, is as good as it can be, I suppose, for the
money--something under an English penny a bottle. But here is wine;
good, sound wine, not indeed from the Rhine, nor the Moselle, but red,
sparkling, French _vin ordinaire_, at a mark--fourteen-pence the bottle.
Truly, Hamburg, thou art a painstaking, industrious, money-making city,
with more available wealth among thy pitch and slime than other towns can
boast of in their trimness and finery, but spendthrift, and debauched,
and dissolute withal art thou!
_Punch, du edler trank der Britten_!
Punch, thou noble drink of Britons--
the outburst of some exhilarated poet--should be inscribed upon thy
double-turreted gate, good Hamburg! The odorous steam of rum and lemon
contends in thine open streets with the fumes of tobacco; the union of
these two perfumes make up thine atmosphere; while thy public walks are
strewn with the unsmoked ends of cigars, thick as the shrivelled leaves
in autumn.
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.