“In England,” says Mr. Wilberforce, “the guard is content to be the
servant of the train; in Germany he is in command of the passengers.
‘When is the train going on?’ asked an Englishman once of a foreign
guard. ‘Whenever I choose,’ was the answer. To judge from the delays
the trains make at some of the stations, one would suppose that the guard
had uncontrolled power of causing stoppages. You see him chatting with
the station-master for several minutes after all the carriages have been
shut up, and at last, when the topics of conversation are exhausted, he
gives a condescending whistle to the engine-driver. Time seems never to
be considered by either guards or passengers. Bavarians always go to the
station half-an-hour before the train is due, and their indifference to
delay is so well known that the directors can put on their time book ‘As
the time of departure from small stations cannot be guaranteed, the
travellers must be there twenty-five minutes beforehand.’” Mr.
Wilberforce should not have omitted to mention the main cause of these
delays, which appears at the same time to constitute the final cause of a
Bavarian’s existence—Beer. Guards and passengers alike require alcoholic
refreshment at least at every other station. At Culmbach, the fountain
of the choicest variety of Bavarian beer, the practice had risen to such
a head that, as we found last summer, government had been forced to
interfere. To prevent trains from dallying if there was beer to drink at
Culmbach was obviously impossible. The temptation itself was removed;
and no beer was any longer allowed to be sold at that fated railway
station, by reason of its being so superlatively excellent.
—_Saturday Review_, 1864.