The Charleston daily news. [volume] (Charleston, S.C.) 1865-1873, 1868-02-28
The German Masquerade.
SOMETHING ABOUT THE aERNANs-NATIoNAL
AND PERSONAL CHARAcTERIsT1os-BALLo OF THE
sENeERBUND-ThE MAsoUEs, DANCING, ETC.

AND PERSONAL CHARACTERISTIcS-BAILo OF THE
sENeERBUND-ThE MAsoUEs, DANCING, ETC.
Among all the inhabitants on this terrestia
footstool of ours, no people have been Dlessed
by Providence with more miscellaneous COM
bination of peculiarities than the Germans. In
both public and personal sense, they pos
sess an individuality which marks them with
equal distlnctness, whether putting meer-
schaum under their own native vine and tg
tree, planting peach orchards in the New
World, counting the revolutions OF the stars,
or searching for the tail end of creation IN all
the out OF the way places in Christendom.
Transplant the German anywhere, and you
move the Faderlapd with him. You can no
more separate one from the other than you can
make sheet lightning out of red flannel rag.
He brings with him the best type Of Euro
pean civilization. He has been reared In So
ciety whose comparative perfection is the re-
suit of ages of social experience. Heis lover
of art in all it's lovelest shapes. His taste is
almost instructive. His affections deep rooted
and strong, cling by thousand ties to that
which is old, venerable. and, at the same time,
useful. His amusements are sensible, mode
rate, and brimful OF satisfaction. He receives
hundred per cent. of fun for every dollar ne
invests, and don't get up in the morning with
headache. His moral safety-valve is always
under control of the engineer, end, unlike an
American he don't stock his furnace with
lager until he "busts his biler.'
A curious fellow is the German. He has all
the vim OF Yankee without his spasms. He
is prngent, energetic, efervescent, but he
never sslops over" He don't often get into
typhoon and smash things. When occasional
" the tempest does break loose, his wife or
children have only to uncork the bottle of SUM-
shine in his shirt-bosom, and he becomes as
quiet as a lamb directly. Obeying the scrip
tural admonition, whatsoever the right hand
findeth to do, the German doeth it with all his
might"
He's family man muchly, and owns nu-
merous wife and child. The eensus-taker sees
new faces every year. stA bakers dozen" is
an ordinary allotment. The neighborhood soon
becomes German. He sends home for uncles,
and aunts, and all his wife's relations, and
thew come kit and kin to swell the tide OF
wealth and honest labor, which, from the mo-
ment he sets foot upon the soil, he contributes
to the country.
But we have switched off the track upon
which We started ye locals pen. We intended
to remark that the Germans, being gay as
well as good people, the S@ngerbund gave
one of their grand masque balls on Wednes-
day evening, and that everybody who went, en-
joyed one OF the jolliest occasions OF the year.
Alladln never scratched his wonderful lamp
and brought up such troops OF fairies, 'ghosts
and goblins damned" such a curious medley
of old clothes and motley colors, such odd,
fantastic shapes, as did the S@ngerbunders
when the baton wand-lke, waved their merry
procession into the hall Of entertainment. 10
describe masques or costumes, would be to
make an epstolatory bed-quilt from infnitesi-
NAL patches, or like fashioning mosaic from
thousand shaded fragments. We can there
fore only generalize, and say that the charac-
tiers, both male and female, he, she and it,
were handsomely sustained; that many of the
costumes were superb, host of them funny,
and some very ridiculous; that everybody made
love to everybody, until hearts were the trumps
of the evening; finally, the masks wero re-
moved, and barring the robes - Office, men
and women resumed their every day characters
in the scale of humanity.
The dancing was protracted until the "morn
sat jocund on the mountain tops" when as
jovial party as ever beat time to toe-inspiring
strains separated to dream of the mimic scenes
of the great kaleidoscope in which they had
whirled their brief part