CHAPTER IV.

I never saw Eva looking better than she did that night. I lounged

around the room until I came to her crowd, attached myself there, and

did some heavy flirting. I asked her to take a moonlight stroll, but

her aunt overheard me and gave her a look, upon which she said the air

outside was too cool. I saw the play was to be above-board. Aunt

Stunner had taken matters into her own hands, and the game had

commenced in earnest. Mr. David Todd, Jr., was there, and Eva paid him

a good deal of attention: I did not like it.

Presently she went off to dance with him, and Aunt Stunner sat down by

me. Fanning herself energetically, she said in a confidential tone,

"Eva is looking sweetly to-night: don't you think so, Mr. Highrank?"

"Miss Eva always looks jolly," I said shortly. I did not want to talk

to the old lady.

"Mr. Todd appears to think so too," she went on with a nod and a

knowing look at me. Evidently she was playing Todd against Highrank.

"Mr. David Todd, Jr.?" I asked languidly: "he has thirty thousand a

year, hasn't he?"

She looked at me sharply for an instant, then smiled and said, "How

should I know, dear Mr. Highrank? It is his rare personal merit that

pleases me. I own I am happy to see him so attentive to the child for

her sake. She is so impulsive and innocent, so likely to fancy a

younger, more dashing kind of man"--here she glanced at me--"that I

acknowledge I do feel anxious to have her settled happily. Not but

that some young men are exceptions," she continued amiably, "and make

excellent husbands."

"There are two classes of men," I remarked quietly. "They can be

divided into those who make good husbands and those who don't. Wealthy

men are the most superior, and are best fitted to fill the situation."

"I agree with you entirely: you are a very sensible young man,"

enthusiastically replied the old lady, not recognizing the quotation.

We talked on until Eva came back: then I claimed the next waltz, and

decided I would carry her off from Todd. I pressed her hand, but she

would not respond: it was plain she was obeying orders.

"Won't you walk with me?" I whispered as we were near an open window

in a pause of the dance.

"I can't, Charley--indeed I can't," as I tried to draw her outside: "I

will explain another time."

"You are very cruel," I continued in the same undertone.

"You don't care if I am," she said a little bitterly.

"As if I do not care when you use me badly! Won't you tell me what is

the matter?" I asked tenderly.

"Oh, Mr. Highrank, I am so unhappy!" she whispered.

"Why so, my dear?" No one could help calling Eva "my dear"; besides,

we were hidden by the heavy window curtain and no one overheard us.

"I--I--am going to be married," she said.

"It appears to me that ought to make you particularly merry, oughtn't

it?"

"But it don't," she answered, sighing.

"Why not, you foolish girl?"

"Oh, everything is so different from what I expected."

"In what way?"

"W-h-y," she answered slowly, "I thought it would be romantic, and

that he would ask me in the moonlight."

"Like to-night, for instance?" I said, taking her hand and drawing her

through the low window on to the piazza.

"Yes," she replied, "and instead of that--"

"Well, instead of that?" I repeated, seeing she paused.

"Instead of that, it was in that old parlor of ours. I have never had

a nice time since we took it two weeks ago, odious green place! I

detest green furniture; it is so unbecoming," she said pathetically.

"And who is the happy dog--I mean gentleman'--Eva? I may call you Eva,

just for this evening yet, mayn't I?"

"I don't care if--if--Oh my! what a name! Charley, did you ever hear

such a dreadful name as David?"

"What! old Todd? It isn't old Todd?" I asked, laughing.

"It is very unkind of you to laugh when you know I must marry him."

"I won't laugh," I said, putting her arm in mine and walking down the

verandah. "Come, sit on this sofa and tell me all about it."

"Well," she said, half pouting and half crying, "I must marry some one

this season--both mamma and auntie say so--and I can't marry Ned."

"Ned Hardcash? You don't mean to say he was spooney on you?"

"Yes he was, but I told him he was too poor."

"You are very reasonable, Eva."

"You need not talk that way. Mamma would not hear of it. I could not

let him ask her, for she would have been so angry, and she and auntie

would have scolded me; and you don't know how fearfully auntie can

abuse one when she begins."

"How did Ned take your answer?"

"Oh, he just went away, and did not care a bit, and I have not seen

him since."

"He did not care?" thinking I now had the clew to Ned's savage manner

for the week past. "When did it happen?"

"I can't exactly remember: it was soon after we took the parlor.

Auntie would not let me invite him there, and he got angry and jealous

of Mr. Todd, who was with me all the time, and--"

"But that showed he loved you, don't you think so?"

"Well, perhaps he did a little: he told me if I Would trust him he

would not let mamma or auntie scold; but you know that was nonsense. I

would like to see any one prevent them if they want to do it. And he

hadn't any money, and we should have starved: I told him so. Then he

said there was no danger of that: he could manage to keep the wolf

from the door. I knew of course that be could easily keep wolves away,

for there are none here, and I would not live in that horrid West; but

that would not prevent us starving: auntie said we would starve."

"Poor Ned!" I murmured.

"You pity poor Ned," said she, now sobbing, "but you don't pity poor

me at all, and I am the most wretched."

"Come, don't cry, Eva," I said, putting my arm around her: it was very

dark in that corner, and I knew Eva would not fuss about it, as a

certain other person did not long ago. "What shall I do for you, my

dear? Do you want Ned back? I'll tell him and make it up between you:

shall I?"

"No, no! He is so cross and fierce that I should be afraid of him: he

was dreadfully ill-tempered when he left me that night."

"But that was because he loved you, Eva."

"When people love me I don't want them to be disagreeable: I should

not want to vex any one if I loved him."

"You will make a dear, kind, amiable little wife, I know."

"But I don't want to marry Mr. Todd," she said, still sobbing on my

shoulder. "Oh, Charley, what shall I do?"

Could I find a lovelier, more tender, sweeter wife than the girl now

in my arms? My ideas of affectionate women had changed, dating from

about two weeks back, and the conduct of Miss Blanche, who would

neither see me nor speak to me since that afternoon, strengthened me

in the opinion that a woman is best with some heart. Was it any

wonder, then, that I decided on the spot to answer Eva's question of

"Charley, what shall I do?" by saying "Marry _me_, my dear: 'tis the

only way I see for you to get out of the scrape"? Just as my resolve

became fixed I heard footsteps near. In another moment, scarcely

giving Eva time to wipe her eyes, those three sisters, the Greys, came

trooping by, and stopped in front of us.

"Spooning as usual?" remarked one of them to me.

"Miss Eva, won't you ask Mr. Todd to give him a lesson in proposing? I

don't believe he knows how to do it. A deplorable state of ignorance!"

said another.

A merry group soon joined them, and I did not get another chance that

evening. However, I went to my room happy, for I knew I should be

successful on the morrow. Eva loved me: her mother had said as much

when I overheard her in the arbor on the mountain-side, and I knew

Aunt Stunner would have no objection, as my income exceeded Todd's. In

an easy-chair by the open window I thought over my resolution, and

counted myself a fortunate man. In the midst of this reverie the door

burst open, shut with a bang, and Ned Hardcash threw himself on a

fauteuil opposite me.

"What's up now?" I cried. "Has Harry Basset lost?" Ned was always deep

on the turf, and I could think of nothing else that would cut him up

so much.

"D----n Harry Basset! I say, Charley, haven't you some brandy?"

"Too hot for brandy to-night," I said: "take some of this," pushing

him a bottle.

"Stuff!" and he looked at it contemptuously. "If you can't treat a

poor devil more like a man when he comes, he will go;" and he rose

with a jerk.

"Sit down, old fellow! or rather go to that closet and get what you

want--enough there for a night or two."

He looked the worse for hard drink already, but of course I could not

refuse him if he wanted it. It is true politeness, if your friend

wants to commit suicide, to sharpen the razor for him and ask no

questions. I leaned back while he mixed a glass with seltzer and drank

it greedily. Finally, when he looked more composed, I said, "I want to

ask you a question, Ned." I thought of Blanche Furnaval's strange

conduct on seeing Ned before me, and resolved to ask him if he could

explain it. "I believe you know something about the queer ways of

women. Can you tell--"

"Look here, Charley," he broke out savagely: "I want one thing

understood. You are always teasing and bothering about the women; and

as you have not got a piece of flesh as big as a pea for a heart, you

will never understand anything about them; so, if you don't want to

set me crazy, just let that subject down while I am here."

"It's a woman, then," I said, forgetting in my surprise to be angry.

"Cheer up, old boy! You will soon get over it: no woman's worth it."

"Not to you, perhaps, but it may be the contrary with me," he answered

moodily.

There was a long silence. I smoked, he drank: at last I broke it by

saying unconsciously, "She is a dear little thing." My thoughts had

reverted to Eva.

"Ah, you saw it?" cried Ned eagerly. "Then I can talk to you about it.

You may well say she is a dear little thing. She is an angel--too good

for a fellow like me. But the poor child dotes on me: that is the

hardest part of the cursed thing. How she laid her head on my shoulder

and cried, and said she did not want to marry that other fellow, d----n

him! It almost broke my heart," he continued dejectedly, "and it is

not of the stuff that breaks easily. I told her I would take her off

and we would run for it, though Heaven knows what we should do

afterward. Sometimes it seems as if I could not bear it. I wish I

could strangle Todd: that would be some comfort."

"What makes you so savage against old Todd?"

"Don't you know he and Eva are engaged? All owing to the interference

of that old Stunner. What business was it of hers, I wonder? And poor

Eva disliking him as she does, and so unhappy about it, and I can't

help her! My cursed luck, always;" and Ned heaved a brandy-and-seltzer

sigh.

Yes, it was Eva. I had forgotten all she had told me about Ned, or

rather she had not told me as much as he did. She sobbed on his

shoulder, did she? His shoulder! disgusting! She dote on him! he

comfort her! It was horrible! A sudden idea struck me. "Did you kiss

her, Ned?" I asked gruffly.

"You are asking a d----d impertinent question, old fellow, and of

course I sha'n't answer you;" and he tried to make his drunken face

look grave.

I should have liked to throw him out of the window, but the question

was, as he said, hardly one to be asked; and then, if she allowed it,

what right had I--It was enough. It might be pleasant to have an

affectionate wife, but no drinking gambler like Ned Hardcash should

ever be able to say or remember that he had kissed the mistress of The

Beauties.

I was sad at heart: hope now failed me. Poor little Eva! I must bury

her image with the "wild rose," with "my star," with the "sympathizing

friend." All, all are emptiness--are names, are dreams. The poets were

old-fogy chaps: they never saw the women of to-day, and well for them

they did not.

I am still unmated: I bear the loneliness that awaits all great

excellence. The sun has no companion in glory; the moon shines alone;

there was but one phoenix; the white elephant is solitary. So it must

be with me. I am not misanthropic: I have learned to bear my

superiority with philosophy. I was groomsman at Eva's wedding the

other day, and gave her a handsome present, as it was expected I

should. I still like my fellow-beings, and fulfill the duties of life

to the best of my abilities. I flirt, I dance, walk, drive, pursue my

usual occupations, give bachelor-parties at The Beauties, and have

grown contented from habit, but I am a confirmed old--or shall I say

young?--bachelor.

ITA ANIOL PROKOP.

MUNICH AS A PEST-CITY.

From a time whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary,

Munich has had the reputation of being an exceptionally unhealthy

place. All ancient towns have their legends of desolating plagues, the

record of an ignorant defiance of sanitary laws, but such stories are

especially numerous in the traditions of Munich, and are connected

with circumstances which show that epidemic diseases were formerly

extremely frequent and virulent in that City.

The absurd festival of the "Metzger-Sprung" (Butchers' Leap), which

takes place annually on the Monday before Ash-Wednesday, when

butcher-boys attain to the second grade of their apprenticeship by

dressing themselves in long robes trimmed with calves' tails, and

springing into the old fountain in the Marien-Platz in the face of an

admiring crowd, is held in commemoration of a similar frolic contrived

several hundred years ago by lads of the same trade during the

prevalence of a horrible epidemic, for the purpose of tempting the

frightened citizens out of their gloomy houses into fresh air and

merriment, which these sensible youths had concluded to be the best

safeguards against disease. The grotesque procession of the

"Schäffler-Tanz" (Coopers' Dance), which occurs once in every seven

years, just before the Carnival, has a similar origin. One of the

favorite myths of Munich is that of an enormous dragon which lived in

the ground beneath the city and poisoned all the wells with his

venomous breath, until, being at last lured to the surface by seeing

his reflection in a mirror held above a certain spring, a brave

knight slew him and saved the people from further destruction. The

former imminence of danger from pestilence is shown also in the songs

of the night-watchmen, who every hour exhorted to prayer for exemption

from the plague, as well as from the terrors of fire, sword and

famine.

And this evil fame still clings to Munich, in spite of all that has

been done to improve its condition, and of all that has been written

to purge it of its contempt. Efforts of the latter kind have indeed

been prodigious, increasing with the growing importance of the place

as a centre of education in science and art. Local medical authorities

issue from time to time ingenious pamphlets on hygienic

investigations, with particular application to the suspicion under

which their city labors in this regard; the newspapers keep up the

whitewashing process with diligence, not forgetting to hold up

frequently before their readers the sanitary shortcomings of Vienna

and Berlin; nay, the traveler is met at the very threshold of his

hotel by a tiny tract containing not only a list of the principal

sights, but also a comforting assurance that the climate is not so bad

as has been represented, and that by wearing sufficient wrappings and

avoiding the ordinary drinking water, strangers may hope to accomplish

their visit and escape unharmed. Surely no other city takes such

benevolent pains to reassure its inhabitants and instruct and warn its

stranger-guests: perhaps it is because deeds have not kept pace with

words that assertion and argument have hitherto failed of the desired

effect. The protracted, repeated cholera epidemic of 1873-74 may well

challenge a close observation of the situation, surroundings and

sanitary condition of Munich as a means of ascertaining the causes of

this exceptional visitation, as well as of the continual existence of

an indigenous disease which, more than almost any other, is dependent

upon circumstances within the power of man to control.

Instead, therefore, of constructing the cholera and the typhus out of

our "inner consciousness," as certain of the physicians and hygienists

of Munich, in true German fashion, appear disposed to do, let us look

at some of the facts of the case--facts sufficiently obvious to be

perceptible to any person of intelligence, and the nature of which is

so well understood as to be accepted at once as bearing closely upon

the subject in question.

And first, as to climate. Considering that the cholera, from which

Munich suffers more at every visitation than almost any other European

city, and typhus, which is always at home within its limits, are not,

properly speaking, climatal diseases, it would seem at first sight

unnecessary to consider the situation of Munich in this respect. But

while the principal object of the present paper is to indicate the

causes of the above-mentioned plagues, the fact should not be lost

sight of that nearly all known diseases flourish in this unfortunate

city, many of them owing to its exceptionally bad climate, while the

sudden and extreme changes of temperature which occur in every season

of the year have a tendency to aggravate those ills which find their

sources in more preventable conditions.

Munich stands upon a high, barren plain, sixteen hundred feet above

the level of the sea, exposed to the full power of the sun in summer,

brooded over by chilly fogs in spring and autumn, and swept the whole

year through by all the storms that accumulate upon the mountains

filling the horizon to the south and east. The air is mountain-air,

_minus_ the aroma and stimulus of evergreen forests, and _plus_ the

miasma of miles of marsh and peat-land and the foulnesses of the city

exhalations. It is the thin air of a high elevation, pleasantly

bracing to persons so fortunate as to possess nerves of iron and lungs

of leather, but extremely irritating to sensitive brains and delicate

chests, and too exhausting, after a time, in its demands upon the most

abundant vitality. It is the boast of certain physicians in Munich

that consumption is rare in that city, but the weekly report of deaths

would seem to contradict this assertion. Certain it is that diseases

of the throat and lungs are very common, especially during the spring,

and that all the rest of the year the whole population suffers more or

less from catarrh. Perhaps if there be less of consumption than one

would expect to find in such a climate, it is because those who would

otherwise be its victims are carried off early by acute inflammation

of the implicated organs. "Of course, if these die in the beginning,

they cannot die at a later period," as a recent medical writer has

wisely and wittily pointed out to certain amateur statisticians who

would fain reduce the mortality of Munich by leaving out of view the

immense percentage of infant deaths.

The evil effects of the harsh air are increased by the clouds of dust

which the wind is continually raising in the broad graveled

streets--dust the more irritating to eyes, nose and lungs because

largely composed of lime, and which dries with marvelous rapidity

after the frequent heavy showers and protracted rains for which this

region is also remarkable. It is the last resort of the citizens of

Munich, when driven out of every other defence of their climate, to

say, "But it is a good climate for the nerves." One would like to know

for _what_ nerves and _whose_ nerves, since strangers who reside here

for any length of time generally find that any constitutional tendency

to ailments in which the nerves are principally involved is increased,

instead of lessened; and among the natives themselves brain diseases,

strokes of all kinds, fits and cramps, are frequent and fatal, while

the enemy which they fear the most, and which presses them the

hardest, is known by them as "nervous fever," The air is too

stimulating for any but the most robust constitutions; and the sudden

blasts of fierce wind that continually interrupt the enjoyment of even

the few days of otherwise pleasant weather, and the intolerable glare

of the sun upon the dusty streets and squares and monotonous rows, of

light-colored houses, unrelieved, for the most part, by trees or vines

or any green thing, are perpetual irritants which must react

unfavorably upon the general health. Indeed, one begins at last to

find in the harshness of the climate some explanation, if not excuse,

for the roughness of disposition and manner which have made the people

of Munich a proverb among their countrymen and a terror to foreign

residents.

Another cause of the unhealthiness of Munich is the nature of the

soil. The ground upon which the city is built, as also the land for a

considerable distance round about, was formerly the bed of a lake, and

consists of a loose gravel to the depth of many feet, there being

scarcely enough earth upon the top to furnish subsistence for the

commonest grass and weeds, while trees, esculent vegetables and

flowers can only be raised by preparing a new soil, which must be

continually enriched by artificial means. A proverb says, "Scratch a

Russian and the Tartar shows through;" so one has only to stir the

soil of Munich to find just below the surface the coarse gravel,

defying cultivation. Of course, all the fluid matter deposited upon

the surface that does not exhale in the atmosphere percolates through

this loose stratum until it reaches the rock, where it stagnates and

corrupts, returning into the air in the form of poisonous gases,

instead of undergoing the healthy transformation which is effected in

all soils capable of sustaining vegetable life. If the fluid thus held

in solution were only the rain from heaven, the result would not be so

disastrous; but, unfortunately, there is scarcely any kind of filth

that is not allowed to contribute constantly to the subterranean

supply of moisture. It has been estimated that of the seventy-five

thousand tons of refuse matter which Munich furnishes within a year,

scarcely one-third is carried out of the city: the rest is suffered to

go into the ground upon the spot. Nor can that third which is gathered

up be considered as taken out of harm's way, since all of it that can

be regarded as manure is spread at once upon the neighboring fields,

whence it sends back its stenches upon every wind that blows.

The people of Munich, according to one of their most famous

chroniclers, have always been noted for their piety ("Fromm waren die

Münchner zu jeder Zeit"), but they have never been celebrated for that

virtue of cleanliness which is said to be akin to godliness: indeed,

they are known amongst other Bavarians as _die dreckigen Münchner_

("the filthy Munichers"); and certain it is that their city is far

behind the times in all sanitary matters. The introduction of sewers

is a very recent improvement. It will scarcely be believed that many

of the broad, showy streets which came into existence under the

patronage of Ludwig I. were laid out and built up without any

reference to this first necessity of all thoroughfares. Even the

Theresien Strasse has not long rejoiced in a "canal;" and the sewer

was laid in that finest part of the Gabelsberger Strasse which runs

past the Pinakothek and the Polytechnic School as late as the summer

of 1873, while the upper end of the same street, which is notoriously

unhealthy, is still unpaved and undrained. The Munich sewers, however,

are not so great a boon as one might suppose: indeed, they may be

considered as mere receptacles and condensers of the evil substances

and odors that would be promiscuously diffused. Owing to a want of

knowledge or of skill in their construction there is not sufficient

fall to carry away their contents, nor is there any system of flushing

to drive out the sediment and cleanse the pipes. Consequently, there

is a horrible odor ascending at all times from the open gratings, and

frequently the pipes become choked, so as to necessitate the

uncovering of the receptacle at a junction, and the taking out and

carting away of the hideous slime--an operation which, of course, adds

temporary intensity to the usual stench.

Another source of polluted air is the cellars of a great proportion of

the houses. Of course the families living in the several flats of each

building are all dependent upon one cellar, which is divided off into

compartments according to the number of stories in the house. These

compartments, however, are in many instances separated from each other

by a mere partition of laths or rough boards, so that any want of

cleanliness on the part of an individual house-keeper is sure to

disturb all her neighbors. Owing to the custom of allowing small shops

to be kept in the ground-floor of dwelling-houses there is apt to be a

mingling of articles for storage in the cellar such as is neither

agreeable nor wholesome. Thus, for instance, a dairywoman will fill

the shelves of her compartment with pans of milk: her next neighbor is

perhaps a small dealer in wood, coal and turf, and raises a dust

accordingly; the greengrocer opposite makes the air damp and bitter

with his heaps of neglected vegetables; while the butcher not only has

a right to hang up his newly-slaughtered animals and chop his

sausage-meat inside of his particular compartment, but may allow a

living pig or calf, whose death-hour has not yet arrived, to roam up

and down the dark passages, to the increase of the general dirt and

discomfort. In this connection it may be well to enter a protest

against the Munich regulation, or absence of regulation, which allows

every butcher to slaughter pigs, calves and sheep upon his own

premises. To say nothing of the shocking sights and sounds which are

thereby forced upon the attention of the dwellers in the neighborhood

of such shops, it is impossible, considering the defective drainage

and insufficient water supply, that the practice should not be of

serious injury to the public health. There are also many cellars which

are rented out entirely to fruiterers and green-grocers not living in

the buildings as a place to store their goods for the winter. In such

cases the cellars are apt to remain in a filthy condition, and the

smells that pour from the windows are at once a nuisance to passers-by

and a source of danger to the inhabitants of the houses. But it is not

only the living inhabitants of Munich that are corrupting the heavens

above, the earth beneath and the waters under the earth: the dead in

their graves are busy at the same work. It is a pity that all thinking

persons who still object to the practice of cremation as unnecessary

and impious could not be compelled to take up their residence for a

while in the neighborhood of the two great cemeteries of Munich: they

would not be long in crying out for the adoption of purifying flames

and the innoxious columbarium.

The Old (or Southern) Cemetery at the time of its first enclosure was

a short distance outside of the city, though not so far as it ought to

have been; but by degrees the streets have been extended to its very

walls, and property-owners build without hesitation handsome dwelling

houses whose windows look directly down upon that field of corruption,

piously denominated "God's Acre." The New Cemetery, on the north side

of the town, has been in use only five or six years, and was from the

beginning but a block or two removed from the nearest houses. The air

in the vicinity of the Old Cemetery is so laden with the smell of

death that even the natives are aware of it, while strangers generally

avoid a second visit. It is a rule that every seven years a portion of

the ground occupied by rented graves shall be dug over for new

tenants, the partially decayed remains found therein being brought

together and buried again in an indiscriminate heap. This method is

about as bad as it could be, but the graves that are left undisturbed

are not much less harmful to the living. These can be leased for a

period of seventy years, the lease to be renewed if desired, but never

for a longer term than seventy years without renewal. Whole

generations of families are thus buried together, each grave being dug

deep enough to hold several coffins one above another, the last one

coming to within a few feet of the surface. Now, when one considers

the nature of the soil, the closeness of the cemetery to the abodes of

the living, the frequency with which the earth is turned over, and the

great number of corpses which in a city of the size of Munich must be

interred every year, an idea can be formed of the disagreeableness and

unhealthiness of the cemeteries. Moreover, bodies are not brought

there to be buried at once, but are placed within twelve hours after

death in the dead-house, where they are allowed to remain forty-eight

hours before burial. This provision, which is in force in most of the

cities of Germany, is a wise one in view of the number of families

inhabiting a single house: it would seem also to offer additional

securities against the horrible fate of being buried alive, though the

time allowed is not sufficient to ensure certainty in suspicious

cases, and is apt to be infringed upon in seasons of epidemic. But, be

that as it may, the continual presence of scores of corpses lying in

open coffins, and separated only by glass doors from the hundreds of

spectators who come daily to gaze upon the ghastly sight, cannot be

otherwise than injurious to the general health. Also, the practice of

the citizens using the cemeteries as a favorite promenade, and of

spending hours in wandering amongst the graves, is highly pernicious:

it would seem as though the people of Munich had fed upon stenches so

long that they could not be satisfied with the ordinary smells of the

houses and streets, but must seek the fountain-head of corruption to

still their morbid craving for the odors of decay. During the height

of the cholera epidemic of the winter of 1873-74 an article appeared

in one of the newspapers, written by a citizen who signed himself "A

Constant Visitor of the Dead-houses;" and the article was answered by

an opponent who signed himself "Another Constant Visitor of the

Dead-houses;" as though no more worthy occupation could be imagined

than this of prowling like ghouls among the victims of the pestilence!

It is now time to speak of another principal cause of the

unhealthiness of Munich, perhaps the most important one of all--the

water. As before stated, Munich is situated on what was formerly the

bed of a lake: the ground, therefore, is full of springs, and from

these the water-supply of the inhabitants has always been obtained.

There is a well in the court of almost every house, in close proximity

to the vault, the refuse-pit and the drain, and well impregnated also,

doubtless, with that bugbear of Munich hygienists, "the

ground-water." The most ignorant citizen knows that the well-water is

not fit to drink, and avoids it as a beverage; still, its use

necessarily enters largely into all domestic arrangements. Children

are frequently thirsty, and cannot be kept from the pumps and

fountains; the poor are not able to afford a constant supply of beer

(and, for that matter, the beer itself is made with the same

material); it is used in cooking and for washing and bathing; and

though its impurities are lessened through boiling, it is so corrupt

that nothing short of complete distillation could make it wholesome

for either outward or inward application. Strangers are warned against

drinking it, and in numerous instances among the citizens bowel

complaints and typhus have been traced directly to its poison. It is

true that a small portion of the inhabitants are more favored in

respect to their water-supply. Within a few years the water of two

springs rising a little way out of the city, at Brunnthal and

Thalkirchen, has been introduced into a few streets and houses, and,

though by no means pure, it is vastly better than that of the wells.

But the whole yield from these sources is not sufficient for more than

a third of the inhabitants; and the Thalkirchner water has recently

been corrupted by the breaking in of the Isar, in consequence of an

attempt to enlarge the spring.

But besides the unfavorable nature of the climate and soil of

Munich--which cannot be helped--and the shameful condition of its

sewerage and water-supply--for which the city government is mainly

responsible--there are many accessory causes of disease to be found in

the habits and customs of the people. The open-air gatherings of the

Germans are, in many respects, a pleasant-and praiseworthy trait of

their social life, but the practice needs to be held in judicious

restraint to make it safe for the citizens of Munich. The changes of

temperature in that region are so frequent and so severe, and the

atmosphere at night is so heavily charged with moisture and malaria,

that the mere tarrying late in public gardens is dangerous; but when

to this source of danger are added the imbibing of copious draughts of

ice-cold beer and the eating of suppers of heavy food, such as

sausages, roast pork, radishes, etc., it is easy to see how a sudden

check of perspiration might react upon a gorged stomach and produce

the fevers and inflammation which abound.

Attention has been called to the peculiar soil of Munich as a

disadvantageous characteristic of the locality. There is, however, a

strip of land following the course of the Isar and bordering the city

on the north-eastern side, which is an exception to the general

barrenness, it having been gradually formed out of the soil and

vegetation brought down the river from more fruitful regions during

periods of inundation. It is a low, marshy, heavily-timbered tract,

which has been partially drained and laid out as a public park, the

so-called English Garden--spot beloved of the people for its welcome

shades, where artificial waterfalls, from the "Isar rolling rapidly,"

add chill to the natural dampness; where unwilling streamlets creep

slowly through tortuous channels toward a stagnant pond, and

pestiferous miasma, rising like incense at the going down of the sun,

broods over the meadows until his rising again. It was in one of the

streets bordering this park that the cholera broke out in 1873, and

there too, Kaulbach, one of its last victims, had his home. So

notorious is the spot as a breeding-place of typhus that it is

generally abandoned at sunset; but the same crowd that hurry out of

its dripping shades at twilight return in the early summer mornings

before the dew has dried on the grass or the poisonous damps have

exhaled from the glens and thickets.

So long as the sun is in the sky it is fine weather to a Municher, no

matter what wind may blow or what evil the earth may be bringing

forth. Thus, on Christmas Day of 1873, when the weather, though

unusually mild for the season, was still windy and chilly, and utterly

unfit for any open-air enjoyment other than a brisk walk, every

beer-garden in the city was filled with an eating and drinking

multitude; and this, too, when a cold was especially to be

deprecated, as the cholera was increasing every hour. And so on all

Sundays and feast-days and fast-days and fairs there is a general

pouring out of the population into places of amusement near and

remote, no matter what may be the state of the weather or what the

condition of the public health.

But, though the people of Munich are extremely fond of staying out of

doors, they are by no means lovers of fresh air in their houses. With

the dread of fever always before their eyes, they make all close when

they go to bed, forgetting that "the only air at night is night air;"

and, hardened by habit, they spend long winter evenings in

concert-rooms and tavern beer-halls, made stifling with tobacco smoke

and foul with accumulated breaths; while at home, especially among the

poorer classes, the air is purposely unchanged in order to economize

heat. Even the Odeon Music-Hail, the place where aristocratic concerts

are given, is so badly constructed with respect to ventilation that

when crowded, as it generally is, women frequently faint away, while

many persons avoid going there entirely through dread of the

discomfort and fear of its effects. So, too, the theatres show a

shameful negligence of the health and comfort of the audiences as to

this particular, the Royal Theatre especially becoming almost a "Black

Hole of Calcutta" by the end of a six hours' Wagner opera. The close

air of the crowded lecture-rooms of the Polytechnic School is a source

of positive injury to the students, and the same may be said of the

halls appropriated to pupils in the Academy of Art.

With respect to bathing, there is no danger of the people of Munich

being mistaken for an amphibious race. The tiny bowls and pitchers

that furnish an ordinary German washstand, and the absence of

slop-pail and foot-bath, are sufficient proof that only partial

ablutions are expected to be performed in the bed-chamber; while the

lack of a bath-room in even genteel houses, and the smallness and

rarity of bathing establishments, show that the practice is by no

means frequent or general among the better classes. The fiercest

radical who should find himself for a time in the midst of a crowd of

the populace would scarcely hesitate (supposing him to be possessed of

delicate olfactories) to bestow upon them the epithet of "The Great

Unwashed." Indeed, it would be hardly reasonable to expect that people

should indulge often in a full bath at home in a city where the water

must be drawn from wells, and carried up long flights of stairs in

pitchers and pails by women and children.

The notions of the lower classes with regard to dress have doubtless a

good deal to do with their health. The same notions prevail in most

parts of Germany, but are especially hurtful in a climate so severe

and variable as that of Munich. Thus, it is considered improper for a

servant-girl to wear a hat or a bonnet in the street when she is about

the business of her calling. On Sundays and holidays, indeed, or when

she has an outing in the afternoon, she may adorn herself with such an

appendage; but to go to market or to the grocer's with her head

covered would be a piece of presumption which would at once expose her

to ridicule from all the members of her class. Hence, all day and

every day women and girls may be seen in the streets without any

covering on the head, though, by way of compensation, most of them are

obliged to go about a good share of the time with their faces bound up

on account of swelled jaws and tonsils, the natural result of such

unnatural exposure. Occasionally, in the coldest weather some few,

more prudent than the others, wear a hood or a small shawl over the

head, but these cases are rare, and excepting in the depth of winter

such a precaution is not thought of, although the gusty, chilly

weather of spring and autumn and the frequent cold blasts that occur

in summer are quite as dangerous, if not prepared for, as are the

winter storms. As a general thing, a servant goes out on errands in

precisely the same clothes that she wears in the kitchen, and paddles

about in rain and snow in the thin, low house-shoes which, on account

of their cheapness, are the favorite foot-gear of the ordinary Munich

women.

Children, too, are sent to school in the same unprotected manner: one

may meet them any day trooping through the streets, their bare heads

shining in the sun or glistening in the rain, according as the fickle

sky may smile or weep; and babies are drawn about in the open air,

two, and sometimes three of them, crowded into a small carriage and

sweltering under a feather bed which covers them to their chins, and

yet with their bald pates exposed to all the winds that blow. The

ignorant recklessness with which the changes of temperature are met is

well exemplified in the attire of little girls and young maidens who

participate in the religious processions which take place so

frequently in Munich, especially during the spring and early summer.

On such occasions, although the weather may be so chilly that the

bystanders are wrapped up to their eyes in shawls and cloaks, these

young creatures appear clad in thin white muslin dresses, with necks

and arms bare, and with no covering upon the head more substantial

than a wreath of flowers or a gauze veil: and in this condition they

march through the wet and windy streets, and settle down finally to a

prolonged service in a church as cold and damp as a cellar.

Another source of harm is the ordinary diet of the citizens. There is

probably no large city of the Old World where the lower classes are

able to obtain so much substantial food as in Munich. Indeed, there

is, properly speaking, no abject poverty in that city, although the

population, as a whole, possesses less wealth than is usually found in

capitals; one reason of this being the fact that many families who are

rich enough to choose their place of residence avoid Munich on account

of its notorious sickliness, while their places are filled by

tradesmen and artisans of all kinds, who must make a living at

whatever risk of life. But, at any rate, no one dies there of

starvation, and the great majority of the citizens are able to have

meat for dinner every day. Unfortunately, veal--and very young veal at

that--is the favorite dish of all classes, so that the benefit derived

from animal juices is not so great as it might be. During the recent

Franco-German war it was remarked that the Bavarian soldiers were able

neither to resist nor to endure so well as the troops of North

Germany; and by many this difference was ascribed to the habitual use

by the former of veal as the chief article of diet. There is no doubt,

too, that the immoderate drinking of beer tends to weaken instead of

strengthen the inhabitants, especially as so many of them drink when

they ought to eat, even beginning a day's work by chilling their

stomachs with this cold beverage, and necessitating thereby a

supplementary draught of "schnapps," thus creating excitement instead

of nourishment, and superinducing a second bad habit upon a first.

Pure Bavarian beer, taken in moderation, would be an excellent thing,

for its stimulating and nutritive properties are a good counterpoise

to the exhausting effects of the harsh climate; but, alas! this

renowned specialty of Munich is losing its ancient fame: the beer is

no longer under governmental inspection, and bitter is the general

complaint against the brewers on account of its alleged adulteration

through the use of foreign drugs and poisonous indigenous plants, to

say nothing of its dilution by the retailers with Munich water, itself

a poison sufficiently strong. For the rest, the amount of pork and

sausages consumed is enormous: the favorite vegetable is the

indigestible sauerkraut, and the bread in general use is uniformly

bad. Nor can tobacco be considered as otherwise than an article of

diet, since the men and boys are hardly ever seen without a pipe or

cigar in their mouths, while the women and girls spend the greater

part of their lives in an atmosphere blue and heavy with tobacco

smoke.

Having now given many reasons why the citizens of Munich ought to be

sick, it is time to see to what degree effects correspond to causes in

the sanitary condition of the city. Munich is known all over the world

as a nest for typhus fever; nor will it soon be forgotten that within

a year it has suffered from two distinct outbreaks of cholera, besides

being the only city in Europe where that epidemic continued to rage

during the winter. The population is estimated at one hundred and

eighty-eight thousand, but this number is generally considered as

greater than the truth. Statistics show that between two and three

thousand sicken annually of typhus, and that of these between two and

three hundred die. Some idea of the special tendency to this disease

may be obtained by comparing the statistics of Munich with those of

Berlin, which is also an unfavorably situated and very unhealthy city.

In Berlin, the regiment most exposed to fever loses annually three

men: in Munich, the first regiment of artillery loses annually

thirteen men. In Berlin, of the whole body of the soldiery--over

eighteen thousand men--sixteen men die annually of typhus; in Munich,

where the number of the soldiers is only twelve thousand, fifty men

die annually of typhus. The disease, too, has been on the increase for

the last three years. In 1872 four hundred and seven persons died of

it, and during the first four months of 1873 one hundred and

twenty-two died. Moreover, it must not be forgotten that many persons

visiting Munich contract the fever there, but return home to sicken

with it, and that this number has greatly increased since the recent

facilities for travel have been extended in all directions from the

capital. If all these cases were to be added to the list of

victims--and they properly belong to it--the number would be appalling

indeed. Even that small body, the Bavarian Parliament, loses one or

more of its members every year from the same disease and yet these men

are more favorably situated than almost any others as regards

protective circumstances. So patent is the danger, and so many are the

instances of disease contracted during a short stay in the capital and

carried away to spread contagion in remote places, that frequently

persons chosen to honorable and lucrative official positions refuse to

accept because, in order to hold such situations, they must reside

temporarily or entirely in Munich. Finally, the general unhealthiness

of Munich cannot be questioned, since statistics show that nearly

fifty per cent, of the children born there die in infancy, and that

the death-rate for the whole population is nearly forty in a thousand.

But is there no help for this state of things? The foregoing account

of the principal causes of disease suggests naturally the means of at

least partial cure for the accumulated evils under which the benighted

city is suffering. It is true that the climate must always be

unfavorable to persons of a certain constitution, but its bracing air

is a tonic to those who are able to bear it, and its fierce winds

serve to sweep away many an impurity. It is true, also, that the soil

must always be in some degree a manufactory of injurious effluvia, and

that the vicinity of that long strip of marshy bottom known as the

English Garden must continue to be a source of mischief; but if the

dead had never been buried in the neighborhood of the town, and if the

excreta of the living had not from the beginning until how been

allowed to corrupt the air and the water, the occasional prevalence of

vegetable miasma would give comparatively little trouble. In fact, the

extreme backwardness of the people with regard to knowledge of, and

obedience to, the simplest sanitary laws is a great aggravation of

both their necessary and unnecessary ills. During the recent cholera

epidemic the physicians complained that all rational means of abating

the plague were continually thwarted by the ignorance and obstinacy of

the lower classes. Very few families kept remedies in their houses,

and yet in many cases medical aid was not applied for, lest the

regulations concerning the disinfection of furniture and the burning

of bedding, and other clothing should be enforced. There was the

greatest dissatisfaction with the prohibition against the holding of

public balls and other amusements wherein health would be particularly

exposed; and the foolish citizens crowded all the more into the

unventilated, tobacco-poisoned beer-cellars and concert-halls, and

persisted in supping on heavy food and cold beer in the open air, as

though on purpose to spite the over-anxious magistrates and doctors.

Nor was the stupidity confined entirely to the lower classes. People

who ought to have known better defied the cholera in excess of

rioting, while those of another turn of mind gave way to superstitious

fears, and as soon as they felt the first symptoms of the disease fled

to the cold, damp churches and wasted in prayer upon their knees the

few precious hours which, spent in a warm bed and under the influence

of proper remedies, might have ensured them the salvation of at least

their temporal life.

To go still higher. Although Munich had warning of the approach of the

epidemic months before it broke out, no sufficient means were adopted

by the authorities to fortify the city against its attack. All summer

long the street-drains sent up their concentrated stenches and the

undrained streets spread far and wide their promiscuous abominations.

The general daily disinfection ordered by the city government was

never thoroughly enforcedly the police, and as often as a lull

occurred in the virulence of the pestilence it was almost totally

neglected by the citizens. When the plague ceased for a few days in

the autumn, the chief medical authorities announced that it was at an

end; and when it broke out again, these wise ones comforted the public

by assuring them that it was only a "_Nach-epidemie_"--an _after

epidemic_--that is, a final effort of the mysterious poison, like the

last flashing up of an expiring flame. And yet this "after epidemic"

lasted more than five months, and was more virulent in its workings

than had been the three months' visitation in the previous summer! The

official reports and scientific discussions of the subject were

unsatisfactory to the last degree. The principal object seemed to be,

not to cleanse Munich and get rid of the pestilence, but to

substantiate the proposition that the variations in the sanitary

condition of the city are intimately connected with the rising and

falling of the ground-water _(grund-wasser)_--a theory which, whether

true or not, is of small practical value under existing circumstances,

since the ground-water, so far as quality is concerned, is entirely

beyond human control, while the drinking-water and the sewers are

capable of improvement.

It is but justice to say that a few physicians--who, having recently

come to Munich, are properly impressed with its sanitary deficiencies,

and one, at least, who, long a resident, has a thorough knowledge of

what is wanted, and sufficient common sense and courage to speak

out--do not hesitate to declare that the bad water and bad drainage of

that city are the principal causes of its everlasting typhus and its

frequent epidemics. But these men are in bad odor with their

colleagues, and are denounced on all sides as enemies of the fair fame

and prosperity of Munich. Certain physicians of high standing there

laugh at the fuss made about the water, and tell their patients, even

foreigners, to drink all the water they want; while it may be doubted

whether any, excepting the few referred to above, have any adequate

idea of the injury constantly accruing from the unwashed drains and

the crowded cemeteries.

And Munich will be visited with a succession of "after epidemics," and

physicians will continue to talk nonsense and make blunders and be at

their wits' end, so long as they persist in ignoring the true causes

of these plagues and in delaying to apply the only remedy. Water is

what Munich needs--pure water for the people to drink and to cook

with; plenty of water for them to bathe in; water to wash out the

vaults and drains; water for a daily flushing of the sewers. As long

ago as 1822 a competent authority pointed out an inexhaustible source

from which water might be obtained, with a fall sufficient to obviate

the necessity of any hydraulic works for its elevation. There is in

the Bavarian Mountains, not far away, a lake of remarkably pure water,

situated at such a height that the level would be above the loftiest

houses in Munich. The estimated cost of bringing the water into the

city is only five millions of gulden (about two millions of dollars).

It seems surprising that with this excellent opportunity at hand there

should be any hesitation about accepting it. And yet, after having

been possessed of the knowledge for more than fifty years, there was

only one vote in favor of the enterprise when the subject was

discussed in a meeting of the municipal and medical authorities a

short time ago. The proverbial thriftiness of the German is apt to

degenerate into stinginess when the object to be attained is of

general rather than individual benefit; and though Munich claims a

high place as an art-centre, it would take a long time to convince its

citizens that three hundred millions of kreuzers are but as dust in

the balance when weighed against the value to the world of Kaulbach.

One step, however, has been gained. The urgent need of an abundant

supply of good water, which is so patent a fact to all strangers

visiting Munich, is beginning to dawn upon the intelligence of the

community. The connection between cause and effect was so evident

during the cholera epidemic of last year that even Ignorance

recognized the Law, while Superstition dared only whisper of

"judgments," and refrained from attempting to propitiate the

destroying angel by religious mummeries until it was certain that his

wrath was nearly spent. But it is to be feared that, taking counsel of

penuriousness, an attempt will be made to utilize certain sources

which have recently been discovered near the city, and which are not

only insufficient, but impure, instead of bringing, once for all, a

full supply for every purpose from the neighboring mountain lake.

The dragon that haunted the soil of Munich in the old days is still

poisoning the springs and the atmosphere with his pestilent breath,

nor can he be tempted forth to his destruction until he shall see his

reflection mirrored in fountains of pure water.

E.

AMONG THE BLOUSARDS.

When the _misèrables_ of the horrible and fascinating old Paris that

people used to read about in the works of Eugène Sue and the elder

Dumas were drawn into the streets of modern Paris by the ragings of

the last revolution, people asked, "Where did these dreadful creatures

come from?" Not only did the well-to-do citizen of Paris, who has his

_habitudes_, and never departs from them, and knows nothing outside of

them, ask this question, but the American or English tourist who was

caught in Paris at the moment asked it. These frightful creatures were

not Parisians, surely? Parisians! Why the very word is redolent of

ess. bouquet! The well-to-do citizen, sipping his black coffee after

dinner in his favorite corner on the Boulevard, explained that they

came from the provinces--"Oui, they were provincials, these

_misèrables_" And the tourist knew no better than the citizen where

the Communist demon came from, with his flaring torch, his red eyes,

his flying hair, his hoarse howl, his sturdy tramp, which trampled

civilization in the dust, and his reckless spirit, which let loose all

the devils of incarnate vice for a mad riot. There are no such

creatures as this under the shadow of the Madeleine! We never meet

them on the Boulevard des Italiens! They don't live in the Faubourg

St. Germain! There are none such in the Champs Élysées, even on

Sunday, when, as everybody knows, the lower orders invade the haunts

of the better classes--to wit, ourselves, the tourists.

Nevertheless, these very creatures are still in Paris in great

numbers. The most elegant tourist who has walked the streets of the

French capital this year, though he kept strictly to the choicer

quarters, has touched elbows with these creatures unconsciously; and

if he has ventured into the Belleville quarter, into the regions

beyond the Place of the Bastile, into the neighborhood of the Panthéon

or the Gobelins tapestry-mill, he has been jostled against, on the

narrow sidewalks of narrow streets, by thousands of them. They are not

such a conspicuous feature of the city's daily life now as they were

when the volcano of revolution was belching its lava torrent through

the streets; but they are there. They are not now occupied in the way

they were then; they make less noise; they dress more quietly; they

attend, in one way or other, to the business of getting a living. Some

are working at trades; some are playing at soldiers; some are keeping

cabarets; some are driving fiacres. I am morally certain the rascal

who drove me home from the Gymnase one night was a petroleum-flinger

at the most active period of his existence. "Give me your ticket,

cocher," I said to him; for the law requires the cabman to give to his

fare, without solicitation, a, ticket with his number, and the legal

rates of fare printed on it. He cracked his whip at the left ear of

his steed, and drove on without paying any attention. "Give me your

ticket," I repeated. This time he shrugged his shoulders--it requires

a really superhuman effort on the part of a Frenchman to refrain from

letting his shoulders fly up to his ears, whatever his determination

to control himself--but drove on in silence. Then I brandished my

umbrella, and punching him with that weapon in the back in an

energetic manner, repeated, "Cocher, oblige me with your ticket, tout

de suite." He turned round on his seat in a fury. "Ah, ça!" he roared,

thee-thou-ing me as an expression of his direst rage and power of

insult, "where hast thou come out of, then, that thou hast no sense

left thee at the last?" Yes, I am morally certain he helped burn the

Tuileries, that fellow!

Others of the former demons who howled in the Commune mobs are now

doing the congenial work of thievery which they did before the Commune

days, and especially during them. They are not the worst-looking of

the demons. A thief is generally a rather sleek-looking person in his

station. Rich thieves treat themselves to the best of broadcloth and

the shiniest of tall hats. Poor thieves usually at least shave their

faces, and try to look unforbidding. If they wear a blouse, it is

because they belong on a social scale which does not dream of wearing

a coat. The blousard of Paris may be either a thief or a working-man:

he is always the one or the other, and sometimes he is both.

The great mass of those who rioted in the Commune--the rank and file

of that turbulent army--may be found wherever there are blouses in

Paris. Occasionally, arrests are made, even now, of men who were

prominently active, unduly noisy, in that terrible time: the French

police has got a list of such, and will go on tracking them down and

bringing them to punishment for years to come, or until the next

revolution arrives. In a most respectable street in the Faubourg St.

Germain, where I lived, a quiet wine-seller next door to me was

arrested and his business broken up nearly two years after the war was

over, his only offence being that he had been too active a Communist.

Later, an industrious blousard of my acquaintance was arrested at his

work, and sent to prison for the same offence: he was a

carriage-maker. In the Rue de Provence an old woman who begged very

assiduously with a drugged baby, and whom I used to watch from my

window by the half hour, fascinated by her practical methods of doing

business, was hauled up one day on the same charge, and went her way

with the gendarme, to be seen no more. A meeker-looking old creature I

never saw as she leaned against the wall over the way, and collected

sous industriously from the passers-by, and hid them in a pocket in

the small of the poor baby's back; but I was told she displayed

tremendous energy as a pétroleuse in those other days when robbery was

a better trade than even beggary. You may have observed, when you

have been returning home from the opera some night in Paris, in the

gloom succeeding midnight, a dusky figure moving along by the paved

gutter in the shadow of a large square lantern which he carries. The

lantern has a light only in front, and catches your eye as it glides

along two or three inches above the paving-stones, so that you see the

figure in the shadow behind it but dimly. Close down to the stones it

throws its glare for two or three feet about, and into that

glare-emerges a hook--an iron hook--which pokes and prods at>out in

the gutters, and now and then fastens like a finger on a wisp of paper

and disappears behind the lamp. Following the hook with your eye, you

see that it deposits the wisps of paper in a deep basket fastened on

the back of a man. The is shaggy, dirty and begrimed. He wears a hat

which he has at some fished out of a gutter, a ragged blue blouse, a

raggeder apron, which was in its brighter days a coffee-sack, and

wooden shoes upon his feet. A short pipe, sometimes alight, but more

often empty, is in a corner of his mouth. No one needs to be told who

he is or what his calling. In the argot of the blousards he is known

as the Chevalier of the Hook.

The ragpicker of Paris has been often written of, but what I have read

of him has never shown him to me in quite the colors I have found him

in by personal observation and inquiry concerning his ways of life. He

has been somewhat idealized in print, I find. Victor Hugo has

presented him in a light not unlike that of Cooper's noble

savage--with large difference of color and pose, of course. The

average Frenchman knows Cooper's noble savage as well as we know

Hugo's romantic ragpicker, and he knows nothing of the American Indian

besides. (It is a curious fact, which I may note in passing, that the

only American author whose writings appear to be really well known in

Paris to-day is Fenimore Cooper. Next to him stands Edgar

Poe--_Poaye_, as the French call him, pronouncing both the vowels.)

There is a street in the crowded quarter of Paris back of the Panthéon

which has the, reputation of being the especial haunt of the

ragpickers. It is called the Rue Mouffetard, and includes many of this

class of blousards among its population; but as there are over twenty

thousand ragpickers in Paris, it needs little argument to show that

they are not _all_ hived in the Rue Mouffetard. Great numbers live in

the Brise Miche quarter, behind the church of St. Méry; at Montmartre,

along the Canal de Bièvre; in the purlieus of Belleville; out beyond

the Bastile; in fact, wherever there is dirt enough to suit their

tastes. For if the truth is to be written here, it must be said that

the ragpicker of Paris is the most degraded creature ever met in the

guise of a human being. I have met Digger Indians, too, in California.

There is something to be said in defence of the bestiality of a

Digger: he has not been exposed to the refining influences of

surrounding civilization; he was reared in darkness and ignorance; so

were his fathers before him for many generations; the white man and

his ways have just dawned upon the poor Digger's consciousness; and so

on. These things cannot be said for the ragpicker of Paris. He is

almost equally dirty with the Digger, and he lives in the gayest

capital of the world. He is also almost equally ignorant with the

Digger: neither can read or write; neither has any idea whether the

world is round or flat; neither is aware, save dimly, that there are

other lands and other peoples than his own; but the ragpicker is in a

city full of books and newspapers (and, oddly enough, is a principal

purveyor for the mills that make paper for printing); and the Digger

has the advantage in the comparison. The Digger lives in vicious

sexual relations, but in this particular point the comparison leaves

the Indian far in advance of his rival, for the ragpicker's customs in

this regard are worse by far than those of even the most degraded

Indians of America. There is nothing in any savage country more

horrible, more astounding and incredible than the practices of the

ragpickers of Paris in respect of the relations between the sexes.

They are so atrociously vile that it is difficult to state the truth

in cleanly words.

You may have heard that a ragpicker who has risen to the rank of a

boss in his trade, and so remains at home in a shop and goes out with

his hook no more, is called an _ogre_. A woman attaining this dignity

is called an _ogress_. The terms are not idle ones. Like many of the

words and phrases of slang they are based on the clearest conception

of the merits of the case. An ogre or ogress without a daughter, real

or adopted, lacks the first requisite for doing a successful business.

The ogre or ogress has his or her especial workmen, who go out and

scour the streets, bringing home their load, and being paid in board

and lodging simply. When there is a daughter in the business the

workmen are her husbands. The process of divorce is easy, and consists

simply in the ragpicker's returning with his _hotte_ (_la hotte_ is

the basket which hangs on the back) to some other ogre or ogress after

his daily or nightly tour of the streets. Marriage among the

ragpickers of Paris is so rare an incident as to be virtually no part

of their plan of life.

The Paris ragpicker is seldom seen in the streets by day: his most

profitable season is the night. And what meagre pickings are his at

the best! what despicable bits of paper, of twine, of coal-refuse, of

rejected food, bones, potato-skins, he gathers carefully in his hoard!

A bit of paper no larger than a postage-stamp he saves. A crust of

bread no bigger than a walnut is a prize, for rare are the households

in Paris in which a crust that is large enough to be visible to the

naked eye is allowed to be thrown into the street. Standing and

watching this poor wretch prodding in a gutter after hopeless

infinitesimals, I have pictured to myself what emotions would surge

through his breast if a New York garbage-barrel were to be set down

before him. I am not sure he would be able to refrain from fainting

away at sight of such a mine of wealth. Happy ragpicker of New York

who takes his morning stroll and his lordly pick from the contents of

the teeming barrels our servants set out on the pavement for him! _He_

does not have to work at night: he is a sort of prince, compared to

his Paris fellow. If a Paris ragpicker could have the monopoly of the

barrels in a single block between Fifth and Sixth Avenues, I am

convinced he would retire from business at the end of ten years with

an independent fortune--that is, if with the New York barrels he could

have the Paris market and live on Paris fare. It is an old story that

in Paris nothing is wasted. The very mud in the streets is gathered up

and sold. There is a market for everything.

An important division of the army of blousards is that composed of the

street-sweepers of Paris. They share the Rue Mouffetard and the Place

Maubert with the ragpickers, and, like them, are scattered about in

various poorer quarters of the city. Ever-picturesque argot has given

them a name of ridicule, and calls them _les peintres_ and their

brooms their inspired brushes. Every tourist has seen those unhappy

wretches at work, sometimes alone, sometimes in gangs of three or

four, men and women together. There is no distinction of sex in this

branch of industry, as indeed there is in none of the lowest fields of

labor in Paris. Women and girls are quite often ragpickers; among the

street-sweepers they form a good half of the force; they are also

street--peddlers, dragging cartloads of vegetables about and crying

aloud their wares; they are porters, lugging bundles on their backs;

they are oyster-openers, hacking away with iron knife at coarse

shells; they even drive drays and big market-wagons; they split wood

and shovel coal, and in a hundred ways confound and confuse those

theorizers who pretend that male bone and muscle is by nature brawnier

than female. The female scavengers are quite as strong, quite as

coarse, quite as dirty, and can smoke their pipes with quite as much

gusto as their male compeers.

The scavengers are six thousand in number, and are employed by

contractors, who pay them at the rate of four to eight sous per hour.

They use up seventy thousand brooms a year, and the filth they gather

is rotted in pits and sold for manure, yielding about seven hundred

thousand dollars a year. Until the rubbish of New York streets is made

to yield a profit in a similar manner our streets will never be

cleaned as they should be. But I fear it is hopeless to expect that

New York streets will ever be cleaned as they are in Paris, from lack

of the human element that does the work in the French capital. A hard

ten hours' work would yield the Paris scavenger forty to eighty sous,

and on this sum he would be rich, for he can clothe and feed himself

on a sum which would scarcely buy a New York laborer what drink he

needs alone, to say nothing about food and clothing. But the Paris

scavenger is rarely privileged to work ten hours a day, and his

earnings the year round will barely exceed on an average twenty-five

cents a day. For this sum he can have sufficient food, and as for

clothing, it is hardly an exaggeration to say that he never buys any.

At various stages in his career he becomes possessed by a stroke of

fortune of some article of cast-off clothing, which he wears, as it

were, for life. Ordinarily, the poorest blousard has a new blouse once

in five or ten years, and a new pair of wooden shoes in the same time;

but the scavenger's apparel is for ever old, and he never lays it off.

I have seen thousands of men and women in Paris of whom it would be

mere idle dreaming to suppose that they undressed themselves at night.

Their clothing was practically as much a part of them as their skins.

It is only in the matter of lodging that the lowest classes of Paris

are hard pressed. Rents in Paris are high. Few families, even of the

better sort of blousards, have a home attractive enough to compete

with the fascinations of the street or the café. Even in the Rue

Mouffetard there are cafés where wine is sold at two sous the glass,

and even cheaper, which would put to the blush some of the most

frequented "saloons" of Broadway in point of elegance and comfort for

the lounger. Stuccoed walls, frescoed ceilings, huge mirrors, velvet

sofas, marble-topped tables, gleaming chandeliers, gilt and glitter

that would be called "palatial" in New York, make the place

attractive. Yet a man could hardly be too ragged to be welcome therein

if he had a few sous in his pocket.

The scavenger and the ragpicker, being the lowest grade of blousards,

do not always rise to the dignity even of a blouse. They wear a coat

sometimes, but it is a marvel of a coat, and was in the last stages of

tottering old age before it fell to the blousard. They wear leather

boots too sometimes, instead of the wooden shoes belonging to their

station, but they are boots which are but a mockery and a delusion,

and yield the wearer no comfort. A respectable blousard--a carpenter

or a shoemaker or a member of any honest trade--would scorn to be seen

in any other dress but his neat blouse, unless on some great day, a

fete, his wedding or at church, when he wears his only coat, or his

father's or a friend's. The blouse is in its sphere a badge of

respectability to the wearer, and honest blousards look upon the

assumption of a blouse by a thief as a gross imposition upon the

public at large and an outrage upon honest workingmen. There is a wide

range of quality in blouses, too. I bought one in the Rue Mouffetard,

to wear as a protection in some of my night-wanderings, for the sum of

forty cents: it was a plain frock of coarse stuff, with a string at

the neck. But there were blouses of several degrees of fineness in the

shop--some of very fine linen, tied with a white silk ribbon, and

neatly embroidered. The usual color of blouses is white, blue or

black. The material is often a coarse, warm cloth, such as one might

make a very respectable overcoat of, I should think. In cold weather

it is common to see men wearing two or even three blouses, one over

the other. Caps are sold at from twenty to sixty cents each in the

same street. It will be seen that clothing is inexpensive to the

blousard, and as the fashions _never_ change with him, he never lays

aside a garment till it is quite worn out.

One of the peculiar features of low Paris is the shop for the sale of

articles at the uniform price of one son. One before which I paused

in the Rue Mouffetard was presided over, by two women--evidently

grandmother and granddaughter. The former was as grotesque a type of

the jolly old _vendeuse_ of Paris as it would be possible to find. A

low, winey humor twinkled in her little black eyes, hidden in wrinkly

wads of fat; her nose glowed with good feeling; her toothless mouth

smirked good-naturedly. A worn shawl covered her chunky shoulders, and

a cap like a muslin and flannel extinguisher protected her bald old

head from the weather. The granddaughter, being young and rather

pretty, was less interesting as a picture of a curious type. The shop

occupied a corner, and seemed to literally overflow upon the sidewalks

of the two streets, so that care was needful in moving about to avoid

stumbling over the profuse array of objects which littered the way. A

group of old women were standing near, laughing and chattering in

toothless merriment over some mysterious cause of amusement, which I

grievously suspected to be myself, the apparition of a foreigner being

no doubt an uncommon one in that quarter. But the women of the shop,

having an eye to sales, were obsequiously polite to the stranger. I

engaged in conversation with the old woman, who proved quite

communicative, and set me off on a path of inquiry which yielded

information of curious interest.

"Voyez!" cried out the younger woman from behind the broad counter

open to the street, and spread with a literally innumerable variety of

articles--"Voyez! All one sou! your choice in the sale!"

To study the shop was to find many suggestions of the types of people

living in the surrounding buildings--alphabets and whistles for

children; playing-cards for gamesters; camphor cigarettes for

invalids; sewing-cases for work-girls; mirrors for coquettes; and toys

innumerable, "all one sou." In the grand shops on the fashionable

boulevards you may see the last new mode in toys--for no season goes

by in Paris without bringing some especial toy or toys to become "the

rage"--but in the Rue Mouffetard the toys are all classics. They have

been handed down from generation to generation precisely in the forms

you see them here. Babies who are now tottering grandfathers and

grandmothers played with the toys of the "boutique à un sou" in their

day, as the babies of the present do, and paid the same price for

them, in spite of the changes of time and the decreased purchasing

value of the son in most respects. I bought a large collection of

these toys purely as objects of curiosity, and it was really amazing

to see, when spread out on a table, what a collection I had gathered

for the incredible price of sixteen cents. Many of the toys would be

readily recognized as old acquaintances in America, but others, common

here for a hundred years past, I never saw at home. The articulated

monkey chasing his nose over the end of a stick; the wooden snake

undulating in a surprisingly life-like manner; the noisy "watchman's

rattle," which in our village was popularly supposed to be the

constant companion of the New York policeman on his beat; the

jumping-jack, the wooden sword, the whip and the doll,--all these are

household friends in the humblest American homes. But not so the frog

which jumps with a spring, the wooden hammers which fall alternately

on their wooden anvil by the simplest of contrivances, and the

horseman without legs, whose horse has a whistle instead of a tail.

How any one of these articles could be sold for a sou passed my

comprehension until I learned details so surprising as to throw this

one quite into the shade.

There are blousards whose whole lives are passed in carving these toys

from the wood of the linden tree, and daubing them with the most

flaming reds, the most glittering yellows, the most dazzling blues,

that ever colorist beheld. The toy whips with handles decorated with

gilt paper wrapped about them spirally are said to be exclusively made

by Israelites, but the ingenuity of the human mind has not devised an

explanation of this curious fact. The papier-mâché sheep is one of

the most elaborately fashioned toys sold for a sou, and the mode of

making it is this: The workman takes old scraps of paper and mashes

them in water to a pulp: this he sticks around the inside of a rude

mould, which is in two parts, one for each side of the sheep. When the

two sides are moulded, he sticks them together and dips the whole in a

pot of white mucilaginous paint. When this coating is dry, he tattoos

the sheep according to his fancy, covers its back with a bit of

sheepskin, and ties a red string around its neck. And all this work

for a sou? is one's incredulous question. Why, our blousard would

think his fortune was made if he could get a sou for it. The retailer

in the Rue Mouffetard sells it for a sou: the man who made it would be

happy if he could sell it at the rate of eight sous the dozen, but,

like most other workers, he must deal with a middleman. No retailer

could take his stock off his hands in sufficient quantities: he must

sell to a wholesale dealer in the first place, and the wholesale

dealer sells to the little shopkeeper at eight sous the dozen. All

this work for half a sou, then! And when it is added that the workman

has to furnish the materials for his work besides, it really entitles

the toy to a niche in the realms of the marvelous. I have found my

eyes growing moist in New York as I listened to the tales of

sewing-girls who made coarse shirts at six cents apiece, and found the

thread, but such cases were exceptional, and could only be viewed in

the light of intolerable hardships; while the poor wretches who make

these toys at these prices are following the trade to which they were

bred, and which their fathers followed before them, and their only

fear is that they may be unable to get enough of this work to do. Each

of the other toys in my collection is made at the same or a smaller

price. The little lead candlestick is sold by the wholesale dealer at

_four_ sous the dozen. Whistles are sold at _two_ sous the dozen.

There are little watches of stamped brass with a crystal, movable

hands, and a cord of yellow cotton with an occasional gold thread

running through it, which are sold wholesale at seven sous the dozen.

"Voyez! Make your choice, brave parents! If the little one pulls in

pieces the object of his affection, no matter: it will not derange

your resources to replace it."

Courier, in the preface to his translation of Herodotus, tells us that

Malherbe, the courtier, used to say, "I learn all my French at the

Place Maubert," and that Plato, who was a poet and did not like the

lower orders, nevertheless called them his "masters of language." The

gamin of Paris, who is the father of argot, long ago gave to the

quarter of the city through which the Rue Mouffetard runs a name which

clings to it tenaciously. He called it the "quartier souffrant"--the

suffering quarter. A designation like this, given by a magazinist,

would be fitting enough, certainly, but received into the current

slang of Paris, it becomes a really striking phrase. It is nothing to

read of a suffering quarter, but it is almost startling to hear an

omnibus conductor call out, "Place Maubert! Rue St. Victor! Panthéon!

Quartier Souffrant! Anybody for the Suffering Quarter?" and to see a

rheumatic old woman, tottering with years and clad in dirty rags, get

down and go clattering off into the quarter to which she so palpably

belongs.

The Rue Mouffetard, which in old times was a continuation of the Place

Maubert from the river Seine, then extended in an unbroken line to the

Barrière d'Italie, at the remote southern limit of the city of Paris.

The Haussmannizing reform which set in under the Empire went at the

horrible neighborhood with a sort of sublime fury of destruction.

Whole blocks of dark, forbidding buildings were obliterated by the

pickaxes of the blousards, who thus assisted at their own

regeneration. The result is, that there is a long and wide avenue now

stretching its lines of lamps into the distance from the point where

the Rue Mouffetard stops and the Avenue Gobelins begins. The old

street--the portion of it which remains--looks with a dazed and dirty

sorrowfulness up the broad, clean avenue which once was dirty and

narrow like itself. The work of transformation ceased with the

breaking out of the war with Germany. So did the like work in numerous

other quarters of the town which needed it quite as badly as the Rue

Mouffetard. But under the government of the Septennat the work has

been resumed in some degree. The double purpose is hereby served of

letting in light on the dark spots of the town, and of giving

employment to the needy blousards, who might get into obstreperous

moods again if crowded too hard by poverty and want. It seems at first

sight an awful destruction of property, this work of demolition, but I

believe it has been proved that the rise in value of the real estate

thus regenerated more than compensates for the losses sustained, in

the long run. All the blousard cares about the matter, however, is

that it gives him work, and that is what he craves.

To see gangs of brawny fellows tearing down walls, ripping off doors,

carrying away timbers on their shoulders when a street is in its

decaying stage, is to see a most interesting sight. At the entrance of

the street a sign is put up: "RUE BARRÉE." The front walls of

buildings torn away, winding staircases are seen climbing up with all

their burden of years upon them and all their secret weaknesses

exposed. Sometimes these stairways are of stone, sometimes of wood:

when the latter, if in a fair state of preservation, they are taken

away bodily, to be put up again in some remote quarter of the town.

Shop-windows are offered for sale for like purposes. At night the

scene is made lurid by the glare of triangular lanterns, which throw

out their warning red light, and the entrance to the street is

carefully guarded. Gradually the old buildings are taken to pieces and

removed, bit by bit. New walls of creamy stone, with modern windows,

handsomely carved cornices, stone piazzas, and the like, are built up.

The street has become widened where it was narrow, and straightened

where it was crooked. The very sidewalks on either side of the new

boulevard or avenue are as wide as was the whole of the old street

which has now disappeared. And with the old street the old tenants

have disappeared too. Handsome shops occupy the ground-floors, wealthy

citizens live in the richly adorned apartments on the upper floors.

The blousards who hived in the old street have found a nook in some

other old street, or they have fled to the suburbs--the best place for

them, as it is for all people of limited resources in all large towns.

WIRT SIKES.

SONNET.

If thou didst love me for imagined fame,

Or for some reason bred within thy mind

By teeming Fancy, till thy sense grew blind,

And wish and its possession seemed the same,

Was it my fault that I was not endowed

With all the virtues of thy paragon--

That clearer light did shine my flaws upon,

And showed the actual presence free from cloud?

Ah, no! the fault, if blame there be, was thine.

If thou hadst loved me for myself alone,

Thy love had lent its graces unto mine,

Until my frailties had to merits grown--

Till light, reflected from thy soul divine,

Had so transfused me that I too had shone.

F.A. HILLARD.

THREE FEATHERS.

BY WILLIAM BLACK, AUTHOR OF "A PRINCESS OF THULE."