The Moluccas of Scheehau.--Roeper.--Beata.--Medical
Female Attire.--Oefel.
I should be doing and writing foolishly,--inasmuch as we all, readers
as well as inhabitants of this biography, have so near an interest in
Scheerau; since Gustavus, its hero, is going thither as cadet; as I,
his tutor, come from there; as Fenk, the Doctor, is already there, and
as Fenk may yet be of importance in this history,--if, in defiance of
all these reasons, I should not insert three papers of Dr. Fenk's. I
refer to two newspaper articles and one letter, which were written by
the Pestilentiary.
I am well aware that it is known to a few eminent strangers who have
traveled through the higher circles of Scheerau, that the Doctor writes
a periodical, which is not printed, namely, a written gazette, or
_nouvelles a la main_, such as several capitals possess. Villages have
printed newspapers, small towns oral, capital cities manuscript ones.
The paper is Fenk's Marforio and Pasquino, who give out his satirical
medicines.
His _first_ newspaper article I weave in, if only on account of the
journal for Germany. This so flat and wordy journal--for else it were
written neither _by_ nor _for_ Germany--refused to insert a good
treatise of mine which I sent in, on the extraordinarily flourishing
state of trade in Scheerau, because, perhaps, no government in Germany
is less known than that of Scheerau. Verily one would think this
principality were hiding itself like a whale under the icy crust of the
Polar seas, so unknown are the most weighty pieces of intelligence
regarding it; such, _e. g_., as this, that we Scheerauers since the new
dynasty have drawn to ourselves the whole East Indian trade, and
annexed the Moluccas, whence we now ourselves fetch our spices, which
the Government, by an autographic order, imports from Amsterdam. But
this is just what appears in the first newspaper article: