Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1903-04-28
AN ODD PEASANT PLAY
HOW PATRIOTIC TRADITIONS ARE
KEPT ALIVE IN MERAN.
People of the Tyrol Keep Fresh the
Story Of Andreas
Hofer.
From the London Chronicle.

From the London Chronicle.
1t is nearly hundred years since Andreas
Hofer. the heroic innkeeper Of the Passefer,
reused his countryman to arms against the
power Of Napoleon, and, inspired by the
same fervent loyalty to kaiser and father
land which is so strong in every Tyrolese
heart today, routed the armies of France
and Bavaria and won for himself a place
among the immortals of history.
The flowers Of ninety springs have BIOS
somed on the soil once red with the blood
of Austria's enemies; ninety years of
change and stress have left their mark in
the Hapsburg throne since the cry, Down
with Bavaria!' rang through the Tyrol;
but walking through the pleasant Meran
Valley, where Adige and Passer rush to-
gether to flow united southwark into Italy,
the past seems strangely near, and the very
rocks tell of that stirring time when the
mountain folk humbled the pride of Eu-
ropes master and gave their kaiser back
his own. There, where Schloss Tyrol stands
on the edge Of gray gorge. cleft deep in
the green hillside, was fought bloody bat
tie when the Frenchmen, caught in trap
between the peasants and the chasm,
sprang by hundreds over the crumbling
edge rather than face the deadly bullets of
the mountaineers.
Where Hofer Slept.
Down in the streets of old Meran still
stands the house where Hofer slept on that
winter night when the base treachery of
fellow countryman had worked his down
fall. In this old Gasthof and in that. his
comrades met to vow answering resistance
to the invader. Through the old WHIST
gauer Thor rode the messenger who bore
the signal of revolt to the western valleys.
Here, outside the town, in the shadow of
the Kuechelberg, the children played one
April afternoon till breathless runner
from the south gasped the startling news:
1.-THE French. the French!" and they
rushed to warn the watching town.
In the wall of a whitewashed Bauernhof.
beside a picture Of the Blessed Virgin, you
may yet see French cannon ball. half
buried in the stonework. Above, the peas
ant has painted the date: A. D. 1909 No
need for an inscription. For the Tyroler
these figures are enough. That was the
glorious year when the storm broke loose
and swept the foreign yoke from the peo-
freedom which is its chiefest boast and
most precious Inheritance. Every child
knows why the Tyroler eagle spreads red
wings on silver field:
TITS not alone the red sunshine,
Nor yet the country's fiery wine,
1t is the blood my foes have shed
That dyes my wings with fadeless red.
Tyrolers' Habits.
The verse is rude; the Tyroler is man Of
few words. He goes his way, paying but
little heed to the march of progress; he
ploughs his fields or tends his vines and
shoots at the target on Sundays. The
kaiser knows he is ready. now as in bygone
times, to give his last drop of blood for the
house of Hapsburg. For foreigners the
sturdy peasant feels fine contempt, blend
ed with pity and yelled by dgnified
courtesy to the strangers who come from
all parts Of the world to seek health in the
sunshine of Meran-the pearl of Tyrol as
one Of her lovers calls her.
It is for these wanderers from less
favored lands that twice year the story
of Andreas Hofer is played in the fields
beyond the town gate, by the men whose