The 1st of September saw go into complete effect the laws enacted in
1867, which have inaugurated the greatest changes in business and social
life, and mark an era in the progress of the people worthy of fetes
and commemorative bronzes. We heard the other night at the opera-house
“William Tell” unmutilated. For many years this liberty-breathing opera
was not permitted to be given in Bavaria, except with all the life of
it cut out. It was first presented entire by order of young King Ludwig,
who, they say, was induced to command its unmutilated reproduction at
the solicitation of Richard Wagner, who used to be, and very likely is
now, a “Red,” and was banished from Saxony in 1848 for fighting on the
people's side of a barricade in Dresden. It is the fashion to say of
the young king, that he pays no heed to the business of the kingdom. You
hear that the handsome boy cares only for music and horseback exercise:
he plays much on the violin, and rides away into the forest attended by
only one groom, and is gone for days together. He has composed an opera,
which has not yet been put on the stage. People, when they speak of him,
tap their foreheads with one finger. But I don't believe it. The same
liberality that induced him, years ago, to restore “William Tell” to the
stage has characterized the government under him ever since.
Formerly no one could engage in any trade or business in Bavaria without
previous examination before, and permission from, a magistrate. If a boy
wished to be a baker, for instance, he had first to serve four years
of apprenticeship. If then he wished to set up business for himself, he
must get permission, after passing an examination. This permission could
rarely be obtained; for the magistrate usually decided that there were
already as many bakers as the town needed. His only other resource was
to buy out an existing business, and this usually costs a good deal.
When he petitioned for the privilege of starting a bakery, all the
bakers protested. And he could not even buy out a stand, and carry it
on, without strict examination as to qualifications. This was the case
in every trade. And to make matters worse, a master workman could not
employ a journeyman out of his shop; so that, if a journeyman could
not get a regular situation, he had no work. Then there were endless
restrictions upon the manufacture and sale of articles: one person
could make only one article, or one portion of an article; one might
manufacture shoes for women, but not for men; he might make an article
in the shop and sell it, but could not sell it if any one else made it
outside, or vice versa.
Nearly all this mass of useless restriction on trades and business,
which palsied all effort in Bavaria, is removed. Persons are free
to enter into any business they like. The system of apprenticeship
continues, but so modified as not to be oppressive; and all trades are
left to regulate themselves by natural competition. Already Munich has
felt the benefit of the removal of these restrictions, which for nearly
a year has been anticipated, in a growth of population and increased
business.
But the social change is still more important. The restrictions upon
marriage were a serious injury to the state. If Hans wished to marry,
and felt himself adequate to the burdens and responsibilities of the
double state, and the honest fraulein was quite willing to undertake
its trials and risks with him, it was not at all enough that in the
moonlighted beergarden, while the band played, and they peeled the
stinging radish, and ate the Switzer cheese, and drank from one mug,
she allowed his arm to steal around her stout waist. All this love and
fitness went for nothing in the eyes of the magistrate, who referred the
application for permission to marry to his associate advisers, and they
inquired into the applicant's circumstances; and if, in their opinion,
he was not worth enough money to support a wife properly, permission was
refused for him to try. The consequence was late marriages, and fewer
than there ought to be, and other ill results. Now the matrimonial gates
are lifted high, and the young man has not to ask permission of any
snuffy old magistrate to marry. I do not hear that the consent of the
maidens is more difficult to obtain than formerly.
No city of its size is more prolific of pictures than Munich. I do not
know how all its artists manage to live, but many of them count upon the
American public. I hear everywhere that the Americans like this, and do
not like that; and I am sorry to say that some artists, who have done
better things, paint professedly to suit Americans, and not to express
their own conceptions of beauty. There is one who is now quite devoted
to dashing off rather lamp-blacky moonlights, because, he says, the
Americans fancy that sort of thing. I see one of his smirchy pictures
hanging in a shop window, awaiting the advent of the citizen of the
United States. I trust that no word of mine will injure the sale of the
moonlights. There are some excellent figure-painters here, and one can
still buy good modern pictures for reasonable prices.