elderly apprentices as they are in
Hamburgh, Leipsic, and the majority of small
towns in Germany. They dine at
gasthaüse, and sleep in the independence of a
separate lodging. They have, therefore,
more liberty; but there are many trades in
Vienna among whom the old usages still
exist, by which they become a kind of vassals,
living and sleeping under the patriarchal
roof. All worked twelve hours a-day alike,
from six till seven, including one hour for
dinner. Various licences were, however,
allowed; quarter-of-day or half-hour
deductions were scarcely known; and I have
myself spent the morning at a public execution,
without suffering any loss in wages.
This brings me to the Sunday work; and I
say unhesitatingly that, as a system, it does
not exist. I never worked on the Sunday
myself during my whole twelve months' stay.
I do not know that there was any law against
it; but rest was felt to be a necessity after a
week of seventy-two hours' labour. It is not
unusual, both in Germany and France, to
engage new hands on the Sunday morning,
because it is a leisure time, convenient to both
master and workman; and I have sought for
work at this time, and found the Herr in a
silk dressing-gown, and white satin slippers
with pink bows. I recollect visiting a working
cabinet-maker's on one Sunday morning,
whose men slept on the premises, and found
the workshop a perfect model of cleanliness
and order: every tool in its place, and the
whole swept and polished up; and was once
invited, under the impression that, as an
Englishman, I ought to know something of
newspaper presses, to inspect those of the
Imperial Printing Office, with the last number
of the Wiener Zeitung in type; and this
was on a Sunday morning,—a time especially
chosen on account of the absence of the workmen.
My landlord, a master-man, would
sometimes work in the morning, when hard
pressed; but, if he did, he took his revenge
in the week.

As we did not work, at what did we play?
Perhaps there was a sick comrade to visit in
the great hospital; and we paced the long
corridors, and stepped lightly through the
lofty wards to his bed-side. Or, if he were
convalescent, we sought him out, among
many others, in the open square, with its
broad glass-plots and young trees, where, in
his grey loose gown, he smoked a morning
pipe. Or we went to church, I, with others,
to the Evangelical Chapel near the Augustine
Platz. There, among a closely-pressed
throng, we heard admirable discourses (and
not too long, the whole service being concluded
in an hour), and heard much beautiful
music; but, to my mind, there were too
many tawdry ornaments in this place of
worship—too many lamps about the altar;
and the altar-piece itself—a gigantic figure of
the Saviour on the Cross, said to be by
Albert Dürer—seemed to be out of place.

It was lawful in Vienna to bathe on
Sunday, and this we did, with great delight,
in the public baths upon the Danube. Or
we strolled about the Glacis; attended the
miniature review in the Hof-Burg;
wandered out as far as Am-Spitz, by the long
wooden bridge over the broad and melancholy
river; or, what was better, sauntered
in some one of the beautiful gardens of
the Austrian nobility,—those of Schwargenberg,
Lichtenstein, or in the Belvidere—
thrown open to the public, not only on
Sunday, but on every day in the week.

As the day waned, music burst forth in
many strains at once. There was a knot
of artisans in our back room, who were
learning the entire Czar and Zimmerman,
and who were very vigorous about this hour.
At seven, the theatres opened their doors
with something of our own rush arid
press, although there was a guard-house,
and a whole company of grenadiers in the
ante-room; but, once in the interior, all was
order and decorum. There was, of course, a
difference in tone and character between the
city and the suburban theatres, inasmuch as
the ices and coffee of the court playhouses found
their parallel in the beer and hot sausages of
the Joseph-Stadt and Au-der-Wieden; but
the performances of all rarely occupied more
than two, and never exceeded three hours;
and there was an amount of quiet and propriety
manifested during the entertainment,
which said something for the authorities, but
more for the people.

As the night deepened, the ball-rooms and
dancing-booths of Vienna,—the Sperl's, Das
Tauz Salon bein Schaf, and so downward to
the dens of Lerchenfeld—grew furious in
music, and hysterical in waltz. It was something
fearful. It made your eyes twinkle,
and your head dizzy, to see that eternal
whirling of so many human teetotums.
They seemed to see nothing, to feel nothing,
to know nothing; there was no animation in
their looks; no speculation in their eyes;
nothing but a dead stare, as if the dancers were
under a spell, only to be released when the
music was at an end. Generally speaking, I
think the ball-rooms of continental cities are
the curses and abominations of the Sunday.
My landlord, who was no moralist, but played
laro, draughts, and billiards on the Sunday
evening, would not hear of his daughter attending
a public ball-room. There is a curious
anomaly in connection with places of public
entertainment which strikes a stranger at
once, and which is equally true of Berlin as
of Vienna; it is this: that, while private
houses are closed at nine and ten o'clock,
according to the season of the year, coffee-
houses, taverns, dancing and concert-rooms,
are open till midnight. Up to the former
hours you may gain admission to your own
house by feeing the porter to the extent of
twopence; but, later than this, it is
dangerous to try the experiment.