Morning journal and courier., 1881-10-06
.sDAY MORNING. OCTOBER 6.. lssl.-
Suurnal arto Courier.
Thursday Morning, Oct. 6. 1881,
BEER IN GERMANY.

1 Some time ago MT. Henry Ruggles wrote a 1 very interesting letter from Heidelberg to l the Springfield Republican concerning stu dent life and beer drinking in. Germany. This letter was extensively copied both in this 1 country and in Germany; and some of the German papers found fault with some of MT.
 Ruggles' statements. MT. Ruggles has,
 therefore, written another letter to the Re- 1 publican, in which he renews the charges he
 had previously made against the efficiency of
 the German universities and gives some more interesting, not to say astonishing facts about what he calls the national curse'' of beer
 making and beer drinking in Germany The little kingdom of Wurtemburg has 1 1900, GOO inhabitants and is not so large as 1 the State of Massachusetts by 300 square
 miles, yet the published records show that during the past year there were in active l operation within the kingdom no less than 7,39S breweries, and in the twelve months 135, ITS, 300 pounds of malt were brewed. In Wurtemburg are 19, ,2s0 beer-shops, or places 1 where beer is sold by the glass. This would make on an average beer shop for about every 100 of the inhabitants, man, woman and child, including babies of the teuderest age. The different towns and cities show a variety of figures in making up this general average, some going as high as 120 and 13O, and others falling short of 100. In Canstal1, for instance, a suburb of Stuttgart of 25, 900 inhabitants, there is beer shop for every 84 people. Wurtemburg is not noted for the good quality of it's beer which is considered of an inferior class, and it may therefore reasonably be presumed that very small percentage of it is sold outside the borders of the kingdom. On the contrary, the Bavarian beers-the beer made at Mu- mich, at Pilsner and in some parts of Prussia which have high reputation-are in great demand, and are imported in Wurtemburg in immense quantities, where they are drunk almost exclusively at nearly all the better class beer shops. With the beer of their own making which the Wurtemburgers drink and tbat which they import it might be supposed that they were real beer drinkers, yet Mir. Ruggles says he is told that the Wurtemburg- CTS are nowhere in beer drinking compared with the Bavarians.
 Among the beer drinking feats chronicled by Mir. Ruggles are those of an old man who l
 
 been known to drink 100 mugs of beer holding half itre each-in one day. As | litre, reduced to English measure is quart | and half pint, it will be seen that he drank almost sixteen gallons. Mir. Ruggles describes an amusement known as 'beer duels'' in- dulged in by students in the university towns. These beer duels are species of mock trials in which two of their number are accused of imaginary crimes or nnisdemeanors, and go | through the farce of trial before a mock judge and jury, each eloquently defended by his own counsel. The judge sums up the case in an elaborate and scholarly speech, and the jury, after retiring to side room where they drink an indefinite amount of beer, ! bring in the verdict that both of the accused are guilty, and that they must suffer the pen atty by swallowing certain number of glass es of beer-and not small number either in prescribed space of time, and that the one who fails in finishing his quota first shall pay for all the beer drunk by the party dur ing the evening, or afternoon, as it may be.
 It is the opinion of Mir. Ruggles that in the German universities beer drinking bouts are more fashionable and more patronized than hard study, and he says ''it has been observed by those who have watch ed and studied stu lent life closely that nineteen twentieths of he young men who enter German universi- ;ies come out demoralized.''