Home and Foreign Parts
City Life V. The Country

Home and Foreign Parts

City Life V. The Country.

(By F. E. Rieck.)

The result of the great comfort and luxury of large cities also in Europe, is that people, old or young, rich or poor, menservants and maidservants, merchants’ and workmen’s children, all desire to enjoy the comforts and luxury of the city. Young soldiers, who perhaps previously have never been in a city, are sent to serve their time as soldiers [in a c]ity barracks.

There they are finely clad in the Kaiser’s own cloth, have clean and dry sleeping rooms, with full and regularly served meals, and regular exercise, with the indulgence of pleasure such as cities provide, i.e., concerts, theatres, balls, sports, and beer gardens. They learn to enjoy these luxuries and when the time comes (after two years) to return to their fathers’ farm, they are loth to return to the drudgery and quiet life of the country, and therefore seek more congenial work in the city and return no more to the land.

Just the same with maids. Once they get a place in the city, with comforts to return to their fathers’ farms, they cannot be persuaded to return to the healthy, happy life of the country. This is a great drawback to the country districts. The demand for labour on the land incresses year by year as the population increases and always more food products are required. Large landowners have been compelled to sell or let their land, and only those who have small holdings, worked by their own family, can make the land pay. Land has become much cheaper; but cattle, grain, vegetables, butter, eggs, and all food products are enormously dear. We used to pay 6d and 7d for beef and pork; now it is from 1/– to 1s 6d per lb. Butter 1s 5d per lb., and nearly all fruit 3½d to 4d per lb. Only one item, sugar, is cheap, 2d per lb., which used to be 4d about six years ago. Good honey costs 1s 2d per lb.

At the present time money is very scarce, building and other work is at a standstill. The city unemployed clamour for work; but decline to help the farmers in the country. For this they were not trained and educated. The recent good seasons have been a great blessing to Australia. They have drawn hundreds of well-educated and intelligent people back to the land, from where all wealth and blessings originally come. It is to be hoped that the recent bad times in Europe will have the same beneficial effect. In all large cities hundreds of large family houses and mansions are for sale cheap. Families now like to live in modern “flats,” where not so many servants are required, as the cost of food is so high.

After spending a couple of months in Bremen, Oldenburg and Delmenhorst, we came south to Munich, where we, as at our age the days of work have passed, spent a happy time enjoying the luxuries of this charming artist city. We were surprised to see the enormous growth and progress of this metropolis since we left it six years ago. Art and science combined have made it much more beautiful. The pretty little botanic gardens and palm houses near the railway station are now removed to the charming old castle grounds of Nymphenburg, a near suburb of Munich. In this beautiful valley, surrounded by old forest trees, the place makes itself a charming spot for such modern artistic gardens, which are laid out in excellent laste by Professor Jobel and his many assistants, and are a brilliant blaze of rich coloured flowers. Also a zoological garden, with all modern improvements, is being built, and a large number of rare animals are already housed, to the great wonder and amusement of the children and people of Munich, who previously had scarcely seen any except domesticated animals or an occasional lion, elephant, or camel in a travelling circus. There the Zoo is appreciated from an educational point of view.

The new Exhibition Buildings and “Folks’ Pleasure Park” are a decided ornament to the city; but some of the present now styles of sculpture show extremely bad taste. Monstrosities in marble, terracotta, and china are occasionally an eyesore rather than an ornament of beauty, and are not even funny; but the park is tastefully laid out. And permanent theatres, shows, Punch and Judy, concert halls, merry-go-rounds, kinos, etc., are in full swing everywhere, and the extensive beer gardens with concert are always full in fine weather. Lovers of art can visit 20 art galleries in this city, besides 18 fine museums, and 24 public buildings, monuments, castles, etc. A new National Museum is in course of erection on a little island in the Isar River, which outvies all others in beauty and skill of architecture.

As Munich is close to the beautiful snowclad Alp Mountains, it is the resort of many thousands of tourists from all countries of the earth, more especially from the low-lying countries of North Germany, Holland, and England.

We soon got tired of big cities, and have come out to Weilheim, 50 kilometres from Munich, and close to the Alp Mountains, in Tyrol, where the air is clear, light and exhilarating. Weilheim, with its 7000 inhabitants, has just been the centre of the autumn German manoeuvres. The military manoeuvres are stretched out in lines from 50 to 100 miles south of Munich, and hundreds of thousands of soldiers were quartered amongst the houses of the different towns and villages. Every family, rich or poor, had from one to five soldiers and officers. One Saturday and Sunday 1500 soldiers, and the following Sunday 2500, mostly cavalry, came into quarters, mostly camping in the open air. Then came 54 waggon loads of hay and straw, then mattresses and blankets, then loads of provisions. In one place just outside the town five brick baking ovens were built, where fifty bakers were constantly employed baking rye bread. The cattle were killed in the Weilheim slaughterhouses, and the meat inspected by officers. This year, for the first time, field kitchens were used. These field kitchens consist of a gun carriage (built like our timber jinkers), the front carriage containing the provisions and utensils, and the back carriage an enormous copper with secure lid screwed on a chimney about two yards high, and petroleum fire underneath. As the affair is drawn by two strong horses from place to place, one can see the soup boiling, and get a most appetising smell of dinner cooking. Each soldier is daily provided in encampment with ration of 1½lb. rye bread, ½lb. fresh beef, vegetables, rice, sago, peas, pearl barley, maccaroni, and herbs for soup; also tea, coffee, sugar, and fat. The people were required to provide bed and board for two nights only; next time they only provided beds. They got a certain amount from Government per man, about 1s 2d per soldier. The officers all eat in hotels.

For ten days the little town and all the surrounding districts and villages teemed with infantry, cavalry, artillery, bicycles, soldiers, officers in motor cars, big and little cannon motor lorries, tented food, and luggage waggons galore. Everyone talked, and children played military. The soldiers left their quarters at 3 or 5 a.m., and then the roar and rattle of cannons and guns could be heard till their return about 2 or 3 p.m., all tired, dusty, and worn out with marching and exercise. Many had tents, and camped in the fields. The brigade manoeuvres lasted five days. The last day the infantry arrived here quite exhausted after a march of 12 hours from 2 a.m. till 1.30 p.m. duning great heat.

Hearing an unusually loud buzzing noise one morning about 8 o’clock, we looked out of the window, and saw for the first time a flying machine. We walked out to the meadows, and were just in time to see it descend like an enormous graceful bird, and running along the ground on its little wheels for a hundred yards it stopped just in front of the large tent erected for its shelter. We walked down to the tent, and were kindly allowed to enter, and closely examined the two aeroplanes, which had that morning arrived, and had their mechanism explained to us by one of the officers. They were both two-decker aeroplanes, with a celluloid gondel for two persons placed under the first deck, and resembling the head of a large bird. The motor at the end of the gondel at the wooden propeller just above and behind the upper deck. The long tail stretches out far behind to balance the gondel. The decks are made of fine strong canvas on light strong wires, and resemble wings, but are not movable. The motion is caused by the propeller, which revolves on the same system [?as] our windmills. For several days we saw these aeroplanes taken out for exercise to the manoeuvres; but always early in the morning from 6 till 8 a.m., or 4 o’clock till 7 p.m., when the wind was still. The machines were wheeled out of the tents; the engine or motor was put in motion till a certain speed was engendered like by motor cars, the propeller flew round, the man got out of its way. The machine ran on its wheels a long distance before rising like a bird, slowly higher and higher, and soared away as if inspired, until it looked in the distance like a butterfly in the clouds. The deer and all the birds in the woods, also horses, cattle, and dogs, were terribly frightened, and ran to hide themselves until the noisy monster had entirely disappeared.

While watching the three aeroplanes exercise from a hill one morning we also watched a brilliant panorama of the troops as regiments of infantry, cavalry on their beautiful chargers, artillery with cannon drawn by six fine horses, also troops of soldiers on bicycles. Each regiment had its covered waggons with luggage, provisions, ambulance, fodder, and field kitchens. Motor lorries conveyed the aeroplane requisites, and motor-cars rushed by at full speed conveying high officers, etc. In all 9000 soldiers passed through Weilheim that day, all bound for the terminus territory of the manoeuvres, when nearly all the soldiers would be dismissed, and can go home if their service of two years is over. All the soldiers here were well conducted, quiet and orderly, and the people treated them well; gave them good beds and tucker. They have no time for sport, as, when not occupied by cleaning and brushing their clothes, they must rest.

We heard an officer say before the final day, “Take as much bread and food with you to-morrow as you can stow away, as we do not know when the day’s work will end.” When they drink the good Bavarian lager beer they sing and are very jolly, but never quarrelsome. When marching home they sang the melodies military songs which the Kaiser encourages by having all the good “folks’ songs” collected in book form and distributed in the barracks. At the market place, Weilheim, the military bands gave concerts twice every day.

Now all have gone away, and it is very quiet. The people here, with the exception of storekeepers and officials, are farmers and gardeners. The custom is here to live with their families and stock on a small block of land in the towns, and their land is all unfenced, outside the towns on which a large barn stands; but mostly all the grain, hay, vegetables, etc., are brought at once home to the stables adjoining the houses. They have a splendid breed of cattle here called Murnan, like a big Alderney breed, also Swiss cows, like very big Jerseys, with a light ring round the nose. Very few horses are used, but mostly immense bullocks draw the loads. One sees splendid cattle at the monthly markets, especially now as winter approaches. They must be sold off, and only necessary stock fed all the long winter months.

A good story is told here about the desire for antique articles in old Europe. At Wangen, near here, there stands a very old rural church, solely used by simple peasants. Since time immemorial there stood in this old church figures of the twelve Apostles, wonderfully carved in wood. After so many years, perhaps centuries, these figures had become shabby, and the good people decided to have the church renovated and everything made modern, both inside and outside, especially the sculptured Apostles; the people were very tired of them and wanted something new. A meeting of churchwardens decided to sell these for 1500 marks (£75), and purchase new figures for 1200 marks (£60). This was done, but what was their disappointment when they heard a little later that their antique sculptures were re-sold by the first purchaser as relics for over 20,000 marks (over £1000).

F.E.R.   Weilheim, Bavaria.