The Sun.
London, England, 1858-10-02 00:00:00

A GERMAN FESTIVAL.

The festival generally opens with a guffaw of a
peal from the bell or bells of the village church.
Then comes a firing of cannon, without which
hilarity cannot have its fling in Germany. The
cannonade is a curious operation to witness. There
seems to be a generally felt distrust of the sound-
ness of the pieces, which strongly resemble clock-
weights bored longitudinally, and the artillery-
man, who is either a conditionally-reprieved con-
vict or the town fool, or some other desperate
and reckless character, gets a very wide berth
while the firing is going on. As he approaches,
the small boys who have been inspecting the .bat-
tery take flight and put their fingers in their ears.
The dauntless cannoneer, however, advances, undis-
mayed, holding a very long stick with a match at
the end of it, and cautiously stalks the first gun.
There is a small puff, at wluch he jumps back, and
then a bang, at No. 2, and when the salute has
been fired the church sets up another guffaw,
partly to congratulate the gunner on his escape,
partly to kill time until the guns are loaded again.
Then there is mass in the church, which is
hung all round inside with garlands, and
dressed for the occasion. This goes on nearly
all day. The evening entertainments in general
begin with a concert in the largest room the village
can boast of. The price of admission never exceeds
five groschen, and the performance is, for the
money, literally the most stunning thing you ever
heard. As every German is more or less musical,
the great difficulty seems to decide who shall not
be in the band ; consequently there is a musician
for every one of the audience, and perhaps one or
two over. You take your seat not without fear and
trembling, when you perceive the frightful dispro-
portion between the size of the room and the extent
of the orchestra ; and presently the conductor taps
his desk in the regular way, and off they go with
some piece of very high classicality. After a little
you perceive that the conductor is in something the
same position as the huntsman of a scratch pack of
hounds ; the dogs, as individuals, are good dogs,
but there is a little too much individuality among
them. They threw off gallantly, and dashed out of
cover in a style that could scarcely be surpassed
by the Royal Italian or Mr. Costa's pack ; and
while the scent is strong over the opening move-
ment theykeep well together. But before long there
are unmistakeable signs of an impending check.
First cornet all but throws up. Bass-viol shows a
disposition to run hare after a tune of his own. Sax
horn scarcely acknowledges the scent ; but Cla-
' rionet holds to it steadily, and the conductor caps
them on for another burst. Fortunately, here they
come on a fine stretch of slow movement, and work
beautifully together. A little bit of allegro inter-
venes, which they go at breast high, and get over
capitally.. But at the other side they are at
fault again. That inveterate shifter Trombone is
at his old tricks. Little Piccolo, a giddy
.young
thing, is running heel wildly. Conductor is des-
perate ;he taps his desk madly. All seems lost.
But no ; old Claironet has it still ; good old dog, he
never gave it up ;he flourishes a bit—he breaks
away. Hark to Clarionet ! Off they go once
more, and run into the finale with a crash. Then
all clear out, and dancing sets in severely all over
the town. Every house that has a floor and a
fiddler becomes an extempore Almack's. The
whole village has gone waltzing mad. As you go
down the street you see nothing through the open
windows but systems of revolving couples chasing
each other along endless orbits. Outside, small
children nearly send you on your nose by waltzing
under your feet. You feel a desperate inclination
to go and waltz with something yourself, if it was
even with the town pump ; but on the whole you
think better of it and go to bed, wondering how on
earth it happens that with all this jollity nobody
has got drunk.—Fraser's Magazine for October.

THE CROPS IN ULSTER.—The northern papers
generally continue to report favourably of the p
rt rosphad
papers
of the farmers. The weather in that quaer
been somewhat broken of late, but the prevalent
opinion still is that the harvest of 1358 will prove
highly remunerative. The Whig of yesterday says :
" During the past ten days the weather in the north of
Ireland has been of the most changeable character—rain
and warm sunshine alternately following with great
rapidity. The labours connected with gathering in the
harvest have, however, under these difficulties been gene-
rally pursued steadily, and the result now is that a small
amount of the crops remains to be cut down in the north of
Ireland. Our correspondents, writing trom various parts
of Ulster, speak favourably of the general yield of farm-
ing industry • and it is gratifying to learn that a great
deal of the alarm felt as to the safety of the potato
crop is passing away. Our Carrickfergus correspondent
writing on Tuesday, observes :—" I do not recollect any
former year when the farmers were so generally caught by
the rain as they have- been lately. Last week commenced
with all the appearance of settled fine weather, and harvest
work was going on regularly and smoothly, when suddenly
—in the middle of the night, between the 21st and 22d—
the weather broke, and there followed two days of an even
down-pour. The damage done was serious, and the
prospects for the future gloomy in the extreme. A large
portion of the crop was exposed in the stook, and,
what was worse, a largo quantity was in stack but not
thatched. However, the fine weather since the 24th has
gone far to retrieve the damage, and I may now say that,
with the exception of the very high-lying district, the har-
vest is now all secured. Nothing now remains but to thrash
and sell. From Newtonlimavady we learn that harvesting
is going on favourably where late, and there is no difficulty
in securing it safely, although the weather has been
broken for the last week. It is remarked in that neigh-
bourhood that late oats will yield much heavier than the
early crop."