Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1884-08-31
ELI PERKINS, IN GERMANY.


Special Correspondence Of the Morning Ns'0s
WIEsBADEN, GERMANY, Aug. 10
Wiesbaden is one of the Eswelp'
watering places of Germany. 1t has
about 10000 guests and at least
twenty large hotels. The Wies-
baden water is hot. 1t runs out OF
the ground boiling hot. 1t is about the
same as Saratoga water heated. This
water the people drink before breakfast at
the hot spring, in the centre of the town.
In the afternoon they battle in it for rheu-
matism. A physician tells me that any
hot water will help, if not cure, rheuma-
tism.
To be fashionable at Wiesbaden, you
arise at O'Clock, go to the hot spring and
promenade up and down long veranda,
with an eye-glass or parasol in one hand
and mug of hot sulphur water in the
other. When the band plays the fellows
Ogle the girls and do little sly flirting
when the papas and mammals are not
looking. AT 8, breakfast of coffee and
rolls. At 10 you go to the Koursaal, big
social board of trade, where you hear a
band play, read the newspapers, drink
beer and flirt with the girls.
When l say flirt / don't mean that girls
know how to f1irt as they do in America.
The girls mamma Away sits close by her
and hears every word she says. Some
times the poor fellow sits between the
two. Then he is between Scylla and
Charybdis. He is hot on one side and
cold on the other. He has to talk Cupid
out of one side of his mouth and Minerva
out of the other. 1t is not so in America.
In Saratoga the American girl gets out on
the back balcony Of the States and raises
an umbrella over a fellow, and their hands
get mixed up under the morning newSpa-
per, and he signs and she signs, as he
drops soft words of love right on her ear
pan. That kind of flirting means busI-
ness. But this talking about the beauties
of the Rhine, the height of the Rlghi, or
the GOODNESS of Mount Blanc to mother and
daughter-in fact, the whole idea of court
ing girl and her mother at one and the
same time would not go down in America.
The fellows are not selfish in America.
One girl at once will do for them. In Ger
many the girl only says yah, yah, yah,
while her mother does the talking. She is
always agreeable. 1t is such an event
for German girl to be cOurted that she
is too happy to live. In America girl is
often cOurted by two or three fellows at
once, and some of them get a decided
but one counting and no flirting. She
means business from the start. She says
''yah'' with her eyes before she has been
asked.
At 1880 comes table d'hote. You eat
soup, fish, roast, game, salad and pre-
serves, crackers and cheese. After dinner
girls pretend to tell their mammas every
thing fellow has said to her, but if her
hand has been held she lies about it.
At all go to the Koursaal, where mu-
sic and dancing fill up the evening.
There is no dressing at Wiesbaden. My
wife brought some Saratoga things, but
didn't take them out Of the trunk. At the
big ball last night there was not one long
dress. Men wore hunting suits and busi-
ness suits generally. 1t look to me more
like a schuetzenfest in st. Louis instead
of a grand ball at Saratoga. The SWEETEST
Dutch girls drank beer between the
dances. Imagine an American girl in
fun toilet at ball at Newport or Sara
toga retiring to a dingy table and drink
ing pint mugs of beer, while her sweet
heart loads up pipe.
No, there isn't any style or fashion at
German watering place. 1t is Dutch
schuetzenfest. If you take the champagne
and long dresses out of the Leiderkranze
ball in New York, you will have left the
grand ball at fashionable Wiesbaden.
When | was in Wiesbaden in 1867 there
was a good deal of gambling there. This
was stopped by the King of Prussia in
1870.
ORTHODOXY IN GERMANY.
Southern Germany is all Catholic and
Northern Germany is all Protestant. The
Emperor William and his household are
PrOtestants. Berlin on Sunday is as sol
emn as any Protestant city in America.
bO or ara oil al nd q
up. The Prussian capital is a very moral
town. Even the photographs of the nude
pictures in the Paris Salon are not allow
ed in the Berlin store windows.
Tell them in American said the ven
cradle DR.. Bromberger, of Philadelphia,
as we came out of the Kaiser HOf, ''that
this morality among the Germans is
caused by King William being praying
Christian; the King kneels down and
prays every morning"
The same change about Sunday is going
on all over Europe. Even the shops in
Paris begin to close on Sunday. In i've
years Sunday will be observed in France.
Old travellers who remember Paris of 1870
would not know her now on Sunday.
Europe is becoming cosmOpolite in ev-
erything. Costumes are disappearing
You could not tell a resident of Munich,
Berlin, Dresden or Paris from New
Yorker. The character of architecture is
also becoming cOsmopOlite. You can
hardly tell Berlin from New York. You
never see a national costume unless in the
mountains of Switzerland. The average
German, Frenchman and Englishman
wear clothes alike.
DEAR, DEAR, DEAR WATER.
The most expensive thing and the hard
est thing to get in Europe is plain water.
At the hotels even in Switzerland, where
the ice-crowned Alps are in sight, they
charge you for ice-water to drink. There
is no water on the cars, and at the sta
tions they look at you in amazement if
you ask for it. To protect myself, now
carry a bottle of water strapped to my
carpet-bag.
One day in the Bon Marche, in Paris,
where they employ at least two hundred
clerks, my wife, who was making pur-
chases, asked the clerk to be kind enough
to give her a glass of water.
ga what?" he exclaimed, in utter
amazement.
ga glass of water-plain, wet WATER"
repeated my wife.
There isn't such a thing in the store"
said the clerk.
''But in this great store what do you do
when you get thirsty?" asked my wife.
''Why, we wait till noon or night and
drink a bottle of wine."
But if it is hard to get glass of water
in France, Switzerland or Germany to
drink how much harder is it to get enough
for a bath. The idea of water enough to
battle in all over sets them wild. At Dres-
den, the boosted art centre of Europe, my
wife wanted a hot bath. In America
when guest wants hot bath, he rings
for the chambermaid, turns on the hot
water, takes it, and finds twenty-five cents
charged for it in his bill. Well, l went
down to the Office and saw the clerk about
it. He seemed half daZed at the idea of a
bath, and went off to see the proprietor.
The proprietor came putting back TO the
office, and asked me what l wanted.
"My wife wants BATH" | said.
GAIL over-bath all overP' he gasped.
eyes, all over, in hot water"
ssHot water-hot water all over-mein
Colt in himmelv' he exclaimed, throwing
up his hands.
ssYes, a hot water BATH" 1 said; ''tell
the girl to turn on the hot and cold
water"
'sBut there isn't any hot WATER" said
the landlord; ''we'u have to send COM
missioner to the bath-hOuse on Frederick
Strasse and have it brought here"
'EWhat!; l said, in surprise, "send for
a bath tub and hot water-send out for
it?''
Eyes," he said, handing the commits
sioner note; sit will be brought here In
an hour"
l went up to the room and awaited re-
suits. The hotel was in an uproar. 1t
was great event to take bath in Ores