Bedford inquirer. [volume] (Bedford, Pa.) 1857-1884, 1869-01-22
EASTERN PENNSYLVANIA.


! The reading correspondent Of the Boston
AdUertiser writes to that paper that Eastern
Pennsylyania has almost the charm of for.
elgh country, The country folks are thor
oughly German in their look, their bearing
and their dress. In the place Of sharp Yam
kee English and the Irish dialect which are
heard everywhere in Boston, the streets Of
these towns resound with Dutch gutturals.
The shopkeepers and professional men
speak English and German with equal facil-
ity, and glide from one language to another
without noticing the transaction. One is
amused to hear aconversation in thechoicest
Teutonic tongue, unconsciously varied BY
the insertion Of the commonest phrases of
our own lauguage-yes, no, well, you know,
of course, and the like. The sign boards
| are half American and half Dutch The
The market carts, which fill the principal
streets at dawn and vanish before ten O clock,
| display great bowls of endless sausage, ap-
petizing loaves Of home made bread, the
fayorite varieties Of Fatherland cheese, and
other commodities unknown to cur own pro
vision stores. Very many of the farm hou-
ses are ofstone, and their huge and substan
| tial barns Of the same material tell the story
Of good husbandry and thrift. The town
ship directors, from Auspech to Zwager, re-
veal only such names as might ELL Prus-
sian orderly book. There is probably no re-
gion in the United States where the popula-
ton have so long preserved the language
and the manners Of their old country
ancestors. For two hundred years. all the
counties in this neighborhood have been
more German than American, and it is only
in this generation that the railroad has bro
ken in upon their close communion of race,
and opened the way to aohange OF habit
and Of language.
One charming feature of the region is the
homeike tavern, which, in Westchester.
Lancaster and in other places, has not yet
given way to the feed-and-sleep-b -by-contract
American hotel You go from the depot to
the Green Tree, or the Black Horse or the
Lion, or the Grape, and enter your name at
the bar, behind a screen which is covered
with notices Of sheriffs' sales; you are shown
into a neat little room furnished in the plain
est possible style, but snug with spotless
linen and fluffy sith warm quilts and feath-
er beds. a portly landlord carves his own
beef for the guests; his wife and daughter
serve it; the table smokes with the whitest
and mealiest Of potatoes, the reddest Of
beets, the most sayory of cabbages, and
/ permitted luxury to lonely traveller-the
choicest and most appetizing onions. No
( bill of fare haunts one with its bastard
French phrases and its bewildering variety
of viands. You see your work marked out
plainly before you eat, and eat as you would
at home. Perhaps the chief triumph Of
the meal is in its pickles You shall have
choice of tomatoes, or walnut, or sweet
pickle, or cucumber, or that white curd
whose name sounds like smearcase. And,
finally, having eaten and slept in wonderful
comfort, you cannot find person IN the i'm
to receive any other fee than the moderate
board bill payable at the public bar Some
thing of thesame kind you may happen up
on in country villages in New England but
rarely in the cities.