Year: 1874

COurtship in Germany.


The Berlin correspondent of the Lon
don Daily Ne1Os discourses about court
ship in Germany to the following ef-
feet:


"It is not of much consequence how
the parties first become acquainted.
Even if the young man has no thought
of marriage, the society of the young
ladies is likely to be not quite without
interest. Now there is no other quality
that German men of the middle class
prize in their wives as domesticity.
The young girls are very carefully
trained in this respect By their mothers,
and at the age at which they marry
they are nearly always equal to the do.
mestic duties of their position. They
know how to knit mems hose, and to
deal out rations to the servants. In
the little parties the young lady is ex-
pected to make the necessary display of
her domestic accomplishments, aided,
of course, by iudicious hints from the
mother.


can observant young man can gen.
orally tell by the second evening at the
beer garden if he is persona grata
with the mother. If on his appearance
the second evening at the rendezvous
she innocently offers him place be-
side the daughter, or accidentally makes
place for him, as it were in the con-
fusion of the moment, he knows at once
that one formidable outpost is carried.
Perhaps the most interesting scene is q
mother who, at public place like that,
has three or four daughters to adjust
among as many ardent or reluctant
suitors. From the pair who are most
advanced in their wooing and may be
left pretty much to themselves, to the
pair who least harmonize and conse-
quently need the most discreet atten-
tion and encouragement-from the one
of these extremes to the other, along
the intermediate grades of connubial
readiness, the care of this watchful
mother ranges and operates.


"In default of public announce
ment of betrothal, people in the habit
of watching tho actors from evening to
evening may tell by one infallible sign
when the happy climax is reached. As
soon as the swain begins to pay the
young lady's reckoning in addition to
his own, depend on it they are engaged.
Up to that time the maiden's Ganse-
braten has been reckoned at the close
of every evening with the account of
the family, and paid for by the fond
parent; but now the burden has been
lightened. The future son-in-l law meets
his sweetheart's expenses, but them
alone. Even if there be nobody else
with them but the mother, she always
pays her own bill. Night after night
one may see at the same restaurants a
young man pay for himself and his
sweetheart, while the worthy matron
just as regularly is left to the resources
of her own purse. If the three visit the
theatre he purchases stalls for two,
while the mother takes her place in the
queue, and looks out for herself, and
the rule is scarcely ever broken. If it
be said on the one hand that the
mother, having shuffled off the RESPONSE
bility of her daughters entertainment,
ought to be satisfied with that, it may
be urged on the other hand that, in
view of the fidelity and regularity ex-
pected of German lover, the support
of the young lady is in itself enough,
and he ought not to be asked to have
the mother superadded, at least until
after the marriage. Young people en-
gagged are expected to pass three hun
dred and sixty. five evenings year in
each others society. If they belong to
the middle or poorer classes this phe-
nomenon is generally witnessed at cheap
beer houses and gard lens, varied in sum-
mer by an occasional rural excursion.
If they have a more exalted position in
the social scale, there will generally be
facilities fer entertaining the victim at
the home of the intended; and for beer
gardens they will now and then substi-
tute concert or play. But the full
quota of evenings is always vigorously
exacted. Perhaps the most delicate
situation for an anxious suitor is when
the mother is Indifferent, or withSa lit
tie judicious matronly coquetry, know
ing that he is anxious, pretends to be
indifferent. This situation exacts from
the candidate the most careful be.
havior, especially late in the evening
after beer, when the mother is likely to
be sleepy and tired, and even irritable.
One false step then may ruin all.