, 1880-09-03
Peculiarities Of Life in Germany.

thing else in the country, never seem 10
be in a hurry to burn, and an American
would say thatthe fire companies were
in no hurry to put them out lhe en-,
CINE is a very primitive affair, mounted
on a hand-cart, and drawn to the tre by
a few men, with as much passivlty and
almost as much deliberstion as If they
we're going to a funeral Arriving at
the fire. the engine is lifted from the
car, placed on the ground and worked
- y,hand.- Usually it is not much larger
/ shAn a garden engine, and does not fur
nish more powerful stream.
I attended with friend trial OF fire
engines ines in Jena. We both concluded,
in no spirit Of exaggeraton, that two
or three garden engines could be OBJ
tainsd from some of our agricultural
warehouses which would do quite as
much execution as the engine we saw.
To New York or Boston fireman, the
whole exhibition would have been a
cold water comedy. But if you laugh
at the fire department, you lapse into
instant gravity when q German very
properly retorts: "oar fire department
may not be as good as yours, but with
~ .r4a significant shrug Of the rsheulders) we
dlJ do not have any Boston or Chicago
fires" And it is true; there is a greater
precaution taken against fires than with
y. us; the building laws are stringent; the
houses are built of brick, have immense,
thick walls, and seem to be practically
fre-proof. Fires very seldom spread
By using the ounce Of prevention, the
Germans are able to get along without
the poundiof cure. With the German
fire department ins Boston, the city
would soon be an ash heap, but with the
German prevention? and the American
cure, it would be invulnerable.
The cheapness of labor in Germany in
r rduces pr9figacy of time and effort. 1t
- usually takes three men to shoe horse
one to hold the animals head, another
TO hold the animals hoof, and the third
to put on the shoe. Ii you wish any
thing done which one man can do per-
,fectly well, you, must, pay, some other
man for looking on. Ifyou have one or
two little carpet bags at a railway sta
tion, which you could carry yourself
without any effort but little strength
of pride, of the army Of porters that ask
to relieve you two or three must be sat.
is6ed In Vienna it takes two men and
horse to water the streets. The appa-
Aratus seems to have been contrived, like
some of the public Offices at Washing,
ton-for. the sake Of giving an extra
man employment. One man sits on the
box and drives the water wagon a
piece of hose issues from the other end,
with sprinkler attached to its nozzle,
" and man following at cry distance
behind swings the hose back and torth
from side to side, and etfectually clears
the streets of pedestrians. Another Sc
4 \ yrious indictment is that there is a lack
Of hitching posts. Ispent nine months
in Leipsic looking for place to tie a
horse, and then, did 4, net find one. 1
have never seen hitching post in
u Berlin, Munich, Vienna 1or Dresden.
c'UIf they are there, the authorities have
taken great pains to conceal them.
doubt if there. is a. real. genuine
hitching post in all Germany The
Iou most natural conclusions Of the frivoli
sggs GUS punster is that there are no fast
horses there. But the more exact if the
less facetious for the neglect Of hitching
7 y posts lis, that no one ever thought Of
them, or, if the idea occurred, it was
probably banished as Offering too great
IN 2 a temptation to horse. thieves. l re-
member complaining to bright and
cultivated Saxon lady one day, and af,
ter riding horseback, that tSeIe was no
hitching post in the city. l told her
IN how convenient and pleasant it was in
America to find standing invitation on
the sidewalk whenever you wished to
alight. "But don't thieves steal them
sax when you leave them tiedP' she asked
in great surprise, And when ! told
~ her that many Of our doctors ride in
~ buggies and carry weight to anchor
- their horses to the curbstone, she was
n'h greatly amused and surprised, and in
20 her opinion American honesty went up
to par. The fact is, however, that in
the, present state Of, German society
j there is no need OF hitehing posts
Such thing as a light wagon or road
,g wagon or buggy is unknown. AT least
lli l never saw but one buggy there, and
that was in Leipsic, and i was so per-