The record-union., 1895-05-06
GERMAN BOARDING. HOUSES.
Experiences of Foreigners Who
Stay in Them.
The Pleasant Servant Girls and Their
Unpleasant Employers Eating in
Your Bedroom Porcelain Stoves.

Your Bedroom - Porcelain Stoves.
Any traveller who halts in Germany for
more than brief time will get acquainted
with boarding houses, the so-called Pen
sions. A foreigner will be comfortable
enough in SO far as he stays in the large
hotels, or, when he wishes to stay longer,
perhaps with his family, If he takes
dwelling. AS soon as he leaves this track,
however, he will get into trouble, II he
be in any small manner fastidlous traV-
eler. The most disagreeable thing In
Germany is by all odds the German peo-
pie. and whoever finds himself COM
pelled to get down and live among them
will often sigh for bis native land. These
boarding houses, which exist for the ac-
commodation this is the wrong word OF
strangers, are numerous, but they all
have the curious property of being more
or less alike. They house anywhere from
one to fifty people each, and are in the
hands of widows and unmarried women
of indefinite age. Oftentimes there is a
husband. also. in such cases where the
guest prefers to take Pension in family,
and to decide which condition is the best
would require more experience than a
man of average ambition is willing to
give the thing.
THE GREAT THIRD ESTATE.
There are something like six or eight
classes of people IN Germany, not count
ing the Poles, the AlSace- LOrrainer. the
Danes, the Bavarians and those adherents
of various political divisions whom Bis
marck forced into the empire, and who
would like to cut the Prussians' throats.
OF these six or eight classes of people the
most deficient in those qualities which
go to make life agreeable is that class
which may be called the Third Estate.
There are Third Estates elsewhere in
Germany to whom this does not with
such special force apply. but it describes
the state Of the case exactly In the old
provinces of Prussia. This does not in
clude the other estates above the Third,
who live scattered about the country in
their castles, and may very likely COM
pare we'll enough with such people in
other countries, in so far as there yet re-
main anywhere in the world counter
parts to the landed nobility of Germany.
1t does not include the professors and
that great body of people who make
scholarship their trade. 1t does not in
clude the policemen and the various
office-holding classes, for whom the fore
=
and, most of all, it does not include the
peasantry and those classes from which
the serving people emanate. 1t compre-
hends only that class which has moro
money than it has brains, and yet not
enough of either to save it from unbear-
able vulgarity. 1t is that class which
holds it to be it's particular duty to pre-
side over and oppress the common peo-
pie on every possible occasion, and whom
nothing but the estates higher than it
again can prevent from even lording it
over the fresh air, the water, and the SUM-
shine. From this class of people Ger
many draws the most Of her boarding.
house-keepers.
THE PLEASANT SERVANT GIRLS.
The most pleasant thing guest will
meet with in Pension will be the serv-
ants, who are one of the wonders of the
world. This applies to the serving peo-
pie of Germany everywhere. They are
Z the most eager, obliging, and reliable
persons, as a rule, one could desire to
meet. Always ridden over roughshod by
their employers, paid but the scantiest
wages, fed not oftener and clothed not
more than is just essential, these servant
girls are at all times polite. cheerful, and
pIeasant-looking. Many of them get no
more than SIS or $50. and found, for their
whole years work, and yet they always
have kind word for whoever happens
by. It is this class of Germans, good
natured, industrious, innocent creatures,
of whom we have fortunately gotten a
large number of late years, through our
American immigration offices, and of
whom, both for their own good and for
our own, we ought at once to have great
many more.
THE UNPLEASANT EMPLOYERS.
The most unpleasant thing in the PEN
sion, on the contrary, will, as q general
rule, be the employers of these servants.
There will sometimes be man in the
case, but usually the employers will be
women. These will mostly be from first
rate families, the proud types of their own
social class. The people of the Third Es-
tate seem fitted to get along together on
rather smooth terms. They are all about
of a kind. They understand each other.
One knows as little as the next one and
wants to know not thing more. He is
like that happy man who. when he was
asked what he would do if he were
live 1t just exactly as he had lived Ii be-
fore. He is always convinced that he is
doing exactly the right thing and that
other people are wrong. he can get as
hot as the next one and throw off as much
bilIingsgate and profanity. In fact, there
is no field in which he is inferior to any,
body else.
thinks her great deal dumber; and it is
only when she gets released from his
overbearing influence that her elasticity
returns, and she spreads out to I'LL up her
share OF space. In q boarding house she
is expanded to her full circumference,
and she runs the thing to make the heav-
ems shake. This is nothing against the
German woman as such, for she is crea-
ture of bondage, the blame for which is
not hers. None of the schools of the
country except the primaries are open to
her. She is stared at If she goes into a
library, or if she does anything not con-
sistent with s1hose standards which the
men of the class have set up for the OBJ
servance of the women of the same class.
1t is, however, much the more to the dis
credit of the men who make of human
female life parody of pity and ridicule
to the rest of the civilized world.
EATING IN YOUR BEDROOM.
IF the traveller is wise he will make an
effort to locate in house where are sew
eral of his countrymen, and where there
has already taken place some abandon
ment of the methods of German life. he
will then still find dinconveniences enough.
The leading diffiulty will be to get enough
of palataple kind of food TO eat. The
German gullet and all its tributary aisles
and avenues have been so toughened and
deadened by the inordinate use OF their
bitter beers, that their foods are suoh as
few foreigners can take. The guest will
find, however, if he goes to a large board
ing-house accustomed to foreigners. that
he can get along. He will most likely
ind settled meal times. though the Ger
mans themselves eat and drink six or
eight times day, as may suit their own
personal feelings. The guest will IND
that 1t IS the mode to eat his breakfast In
his bedroom. This is no real breakfast.
but it is called the first breakfast. 1t con-
sists of coffee and bread, and in stylish
circles Is sometimes helped out with
Soma butter. The Garman Ia L "a his SEC