New national era. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1870-1874, 1873-04-24
VsenpcSe AlnuSeni nfs,

The people of Vienna rejoice in their cos
inopolitan character. In their finest gardens
of amusement-Modling's- grounds are
laid out ethnologically, the buildings and
sections being marked Asia, Europe, Africa,
America, and so on. 4 masquerade there
and they are given not only in the season,
but whenever any fete is going on-presents
medley of characters such as cannot be
witnessed elsewhere in Europe. remember
taking my stand there on one such occasion,
and the whole world seemed to pass by in
costume. One may feel that he is in an
utterly foreign world, with continents, oceans,
and ages stretching between him and people
of kindred blood. But let him not be too
certain of that. Here pass two unmistakable
cockneys. There walks before them in the
procession small figure, enveloped in close
domino covering the head and sweeping the
ground. Cockney Number T~e says to Num-
Der Two, "Say, Bill, what sex does that
hanimal belong %" 'Middlesex," retorts
the small domino, turning sharply around
'Middlesex. l was born in the Strand, in
hearing Of Bowbells. Do you know the
place ~ The cockney, who had counted too
much upon the safe obscurty of his mother
tongue, quite wilted under the reply, which
was given with a matchless imitation of his
accent. Vienna has, indeed, especially since
the cloud passed upon Paris, become IA
yorite playground for Londoners, and for
Americans too. The managers of places of
amusement, especially of gardens and dane
lng-rooms, in Vienna, as elsewhere on the
Continent, look upon their Anglo-Saxon Wis
itors with some dread. They spend a good
deal OF money, they admit; but they allege
also that Americans and Englishmen are
rude, and sometimes offensive. At masquer-
AIDES especially they do not seem to be aware
that they are the traditional ENJOYMENT of
respectable people. At home they perhaps
take it for granted that the freedom as to
costume admissible in the bal masgue implies
some lOoseness Of character in the wearers :;
but, however that may be in London or New
York, it is by no means true in Vienna.
Here, even on ordinary occasions, dresses
may be worn by respectable people which
would he impossible in more western end
northern countries; they are simply histori-
cal, and represent that uncrystalized condl-
ton of Austrian society Of which | have
spoken.
When in one of these gardens or public
places one sits down to supper-as he will
generally wish to do, the dinner hour being
usually as early as three o'clock-he will find
the table loaded with luXuries, which repre-
sent, like everything else, the vast outlying
domains of the country. The oysters and
crabs, fresh as they are, have come from the
Adriatic, packed in ice. The little Holsters
have come also from some far-off sea, packed
in barrels, and they appear on the table lying
on the laurel leaves used in packing them.
The delicious cells are all Bohemian the
chamois is Syrian. (When one hears the
stories of how the little channels is hunted,
and how its mother shows genius in trying
to preserve it--sometimes making herself
into bridge for them to pass chasms-one
feels almost as if he were eating a baby.)
The little sturgeon is from Hungary. The
salmon is from the Rhine or the Elbe The
pheasants are chiefly from Bohemia, and in
eating them one can commend the taste Of
Napoleon l., who had five hundred of them
sent to him every year. Vienna itself has
but few luxuries not borrowed; the best,
perhaps, are the little homeless fish, Kope1.,
$50 named from its big head, ~ and the Hucl.en
trout, which has no scales, on which account
the Jews (who will eat no scaly fish, buy it
up at any price.-From Vienna" by NJ. d.
Conway, in Harper's Magazine for May.