preserve through difficulties, if we do not find in it how far judicious enterprise might be carried.

In the German village, to begin, with the higher elements, the church is neither the property of the patron nor of the incumbent, nor is it vested in trustees for the benefit of the inhabitants. It belongs to the parish, or “ Gemeinde," as the associated householders are called in German. The school, in the same manner, and all public institutions or buildings, roads, or watercourses, often mills and industrial establishments, that have been constructed at the expense of, or presented by patrons to the village, are the property of the little community. But it will be said that persons must represent all corporations, to sue and to be sued. The German village is represented by one or more headboroughs, according to its size, who have the honourable charge of protecting the public property, both against official and private aggression. The consequence of this retention of the management of their affairs in the villagers' own hands, has been a remarkable conservation of village property, and every member of a Gemeinde has the satisfaction of thinking that he is not alone herded with others in a county division for the purpose of facilitating taxation or militia returns, but that he is a member of an active association, which has life imparted to it by a sense of its holding property which must be managed and turned to account. It is most interesting to hear the men to whom the direction of these village affairs is intrusted (and the office was long elective, being given only to such as deserved public confidence) on the manifold questions arising from the management of this property. Their circumspection, blended with the quiet manner of expressing themselves which is peculiar to respectable men of all classes in Germany, has often the appearance of slowness; and to those not better acquainted with them, would seem to indicate a good-natured easiness that would lead them to be duped. This notion is soon dispelled when business has to be transacted, and it then becomes evident that the peasant has often best considered his opinion before he pronounced it, and others are often glad to come round to it. Within a short

period the privilege of electing their headborough has been taken from the villagers of Prussia. The central point of meeting in every village is some favourite inn. At nightfall the men of any standing usually resort to it as a lounge. They meet there the officials of the magistracy, if there be any, the tax-gatherer, and those who, either having no establishment, are boarders with the host, or who seek the spot to exchange opinions with their neighbours. In the early part of the evening the pastor may be seen amongst them, and his presence indicates that propriety is not supposed to be violated by such meetings so long as order is maintained. Whoever is sufficiently master of the language to follow the peculiar tone of the conversation, which is anything but wordy-if he be indurated to tobacco fumes, will carry away with him, from a few sittings, the idea of a people managing their own little interests with full consciousness-with an attention to economy that is most praiseworthy, and with a regard to propriety that must call for admiration. Although a newspaper is to be found in every village, and transatlantic proceedings now interest nearly every German family, yet politics are not much discussed until they assume the tangible form of interfering with village property. The disputed points respecting general or provincial parlia ments, freedom of the press, and constitutions granted or subverted, do not, in the present state of things, sufficiently excite the peasant, who is more on his guard against innovators, and against other preponderating influences in the state, than against the growth of the prerogative. We have already attributed to this village system the feeling of a separation of interests which we have observed between the peasants and what are called the higher classes. The tie arising from large landed properties, for the privilege of using which the tenant in England was long considered as indebted to the favour of the landlord, is here not to be found. Every man usually occupies his own land and lives in his own house-not so comfortably as an Englishman often does in a house that is rented-but, certainly, independently. On the other hand, the ill-will that threatens from a pressing de

mand for land for manufacturing purposes in England, need not here be feared, for the minute division of the land, united with the security conferred by the officially registered title, facilitates the necessary transfers. In the small villages the police is left to the management of the headborough, who receives his instructions from the chief town of the circle, and the popular element in this system reconciles the people to the strict registration of the inhabitants, with their occupations, and property in land and cattle, which is insisted upon. This registration is again a source of credit, as mortgages must also be registered to be effective, and titles to land are clear and inexpensive to make out. Transfers of real property are often made in Germany under these official titles; the expense of conveying which in England would more than absorb the purchase money. The village registers are of ancient date in Germany; and since the military surveys have been completed for the re-partition of the land-tax, are accompanied by maps that afford a minute view of the country, such as leaves the most ardent statician nothing to desire. We are only beginning to use the detailed information that can in this way be collected, and the Prussian government has contributed liberally to our stock of knowledge respecting Central Europe. From the constitution of the village government that we have endeavoured to describe, it is evident that the most detailed and authentic information must be at the minister's command. Out of this state of publicity regarding private affairs a peculiar tone of moral feeling necessarily arises. Every man's proceedings in the village being known, and the state of his property being no secret, there is little room for an affectation of prosperity that does not exist. On the other hand, the poor know and keep each other in countenance by their number. Nor do feelings of false pride in these villages prevent young men and women from going into service in the place where perhaps their parents occupied an independent position. There is a kindly tone prevalent, very different from that which separates the servant from the master in England. One table generally unites the whole family at meals,

The village or common property comprises woodland as well as grazing-land, and, as has been said, frequently includes watercourses, public places and buildings, as well as money invested in the public funds. The revenue derived from all these sources is applied, as far as it goes, in alleviation of parochial and county taxation. From this fund the few poor persons that become chargeable are supported. We have been told of parishes where the members of the village corporation receive a dividend out of the common property. To obtain admittance to the rights of a villager a stranger must pay a certain sum, which is large or small according to the wealth of the corporation. He then enjoys the grazing and fuel rights, and the modification in taxation which the annual revenue procures. In the Rhenish districts the fee on admittance is high when compared with Central Germany. It is, we believe, highest in Rhenish Bavaria, where, in some villages, it amounts to 1500 florins, or 1207.

The various official personages of the village, such as the field-police, the cow, swine, and goose herd, the schoolmaster, the headborough and his officer or bailiff, receive their salaries from this fund, out of which, too, all public expenses, where it suffices, are defrayed. The church has generally its own foundation.

We cannot omit a very important service rendered by the government in the appointment of district physicians, who are bound to go wherever they may be required, and to report on the general state of the public health. The poorest person can demand their assistance without feeing them, but the richer peasants never fail to give some compensation. This excellent institution is completed by the appointment of official druggists in all district capitals, who are bound to keep only the best drugs, and to sell them at a fixed tariff. In no country is medical relief less expensive and more easily accessible than in Germany.

Some of these village arrangements, although savouring of antiquity, are calculated to rouse the inquiry whether the

spirit which called them into existence, and the calculation upon which they are founded, might not be acted upon still to the great advantage of society.

In the first place, to the mill of the lord of the manor, to which the peasants, while serfs, were bound to bring their grain to be ground, a village mill has succeeded, occasionally forming part of the corporation property, sometimes owned by shareholders who have purchased the mill of some once privileged owner. As it is still usual all over Germany for peasants to grind their own corn, there may be seen a table in all these mills in which the miller's fee, usually a portion of the meal, is expressed for all the quantities commonly brought. The feeling of security conveyed by the power of doing without extraneous help a relic, perhaps, of the times when communications were liable to constant interruption, and bad roads made carriage difficult or impossible -still gives price to these mills. We have known instances of large sums being refused for mills that were sought for manufacturing purposes; the ground assigned being that the village could not do without it.

A public baking-oven is another appendage to a German village, although every rich peasant has his own. The oven is heated by those who use it in succession, each person bringing his own wood. In autumn the flax, after steeping or dew-rotting, is dried in this oven. The tendency of modern times is to dispense with these efforts to attain, by association, what was difficult or expensive for individuals to establish. We cannot help thinking that more may be said in defence of these common institutions than in praise of much that has superseded them. The great article of consumption, bread, is, for instance, enjoyed at least in purity by the aid of the village mill. Cheapness, of course, is at present not attained by the peasant, who never calculates the value of the time he spends in procuring food, and who certainly does not rank the exemption of the females of his family from drudgery amongst his luxuries. They are allotted their full share of outdoor work, as well as all the care of the household.

The expense incurred by labour lost or

inefficiently applied is, however, no result of the institutions which under their present management demand the sacrifice. It would only be necessary to place the mill, for instance, on the footing of a private trading concern, and to value the corn delivered and the meal received in money, to make all waste apparent, and to suggest the requisite means of economy. Were the forests and grazing commons treated in the same manner, a like result would take place. The invaluable control retained by the villagers over their miller, of displacing him for misconduct, would secure their meal from the adulteration of which the inhabitants of towns so justly complain. We cannot help thinking that a judicious development of this German village system would secure to the people many of the advantages which they hope, by what are called socialist or communist unions, to attain, without exposing them to the dangers which these innovations threaten. Food of all kinds and clothing, cheap and good, might be secured by village shops, or by the establishment of district magazines, on a plan like that of the Apothecaries' halls that are now found in all German towns under the inspection of the government. The adulteration of colonial wares, that is notorious, forms as heavy a drain on the health as the overcharge for retailing in small portions does upon the purses of the great mass of the people in all countries. Their resources might everywhere be made to go much further everywhere than they now can.

To secure these advan

tages no revolution in political or religious institutions is requisite. A far more searching change in public opinion is, however, indispensable the recognition of the fact that the cheapness of necessaries is a private as well as a public benefit.

Like the moral side of the village system, the material aspect and arrangements of the village itself, its houses, its roads, its public and corporation edifices, have two points of view from which the stranger must judge of them. The position of nearly every old village was usually determined by flowing water, and the care bestowed upon the stream that runs apparently disregarded in its irregular meanderings through the mass of houses, whose

position has, by its course, been no less irregularly fixed, is greater than a superficial glance would lead one to suppose. Endless are the difficulties which the preservation of this running water in its full purity opposes to changes, and often to improvements. Prosaic as it may seem, we are inclined to ascribe the early use of liquid manure amongst the German peasantry to the obligation enforced upon all neighbours to the stream to prevent the issue of drains into it. This restriction does not apply to rivers, which in Germany, as elsewhere, are made the means of impoverishing the people by ministering to their wasteful convenience. But the brook, which is the centre round which village arrangements revolve in their daily homely course, is consecrated to cleanliness, being, we are sorry to say, almost the only sacrifice on the altar of the deity that is conspicuous. The details of the best managed farm-yard suppose some portions of ground devoted to what in its place is prized as highly valuable, but out of its place is mere filth. A German village is an assemblage of diminutive farm-yards, where the dung-heap, with all its accompanying odours, and unsavoury streams, subdivided like the land they are destined to fertilise, is reproduced at every house; and, as the near and ingenious contrivances to keep these matters out of sight, which are impracticable on a large scale, are out of the question when they require to be repeated in innumerable varieties around every man's tenement, they are of course dropped altogether. The multiplicity of small dung-heaps, exposed to the heat of a Rhenish sun, unquestionably taints the air and affects the health of the villagers; but it would be as hard to suppress the pleasure with which every member of the family regards the heap that is to supply their yearly food, as it is to drive the Irishman's pig out of the cabin of which pays the rent.

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We know several books, well penned and full of good advice, that are circulated at a cheap rate for the benefit of Irish cottiers. In one we remember a tirade against horses, the inclination to indulge in which is deeply implanted in Paddy's nature. The author has calculated, perhaps too moderately, the expense of the

keep of a horse, and shows that a horse to five acres of land, as he finds is kept in part of the county of Wexford, is a palpable absurdity. But besides making no allowance for the fact that five acres of land leave a man time enough to earn money in other ways, and the trade of a carrier is everywhere a profitable one, the account is summarily balanced against the peasant without allowing anything for the manure of his stable. How friend Martin Doyle could overlook this point, as well as the fact that horse-dung, in the wet soil of Ireland, is likely to be more suitable manure than the dung of the cow, which he would substitute for the horse, we cannot explain. In Germany no one recommends the peasant to diminish the number of his herd, nor do any pretend to prescribe the keeping of one animal for another, experience having long since made the peasant wiser on this point than his adviser, who cannot follow all his minute calculations. Directions for building pits, and treating the heaps so as to promote or check fermentation, as it may be necessary, are circulated by the agricultural societies, but the time has not yet arrived for observing whether the heap be exposed to the public gaze or not. As long as the existence of the mass of the people is only secured by the subdivision of the nourishing soil, that is to say, as long as manufactures do not at home afford means of exchange for agricultural objects, and trade is not allowed to seek them abroad, so long must the villager be a small landowner; and one of the responsibilities he lies under is, that of contributing his share, however diminutive, towards keeping the land in heart.

If the stream destined to furnish the indispensable beverage for man and beast is kept as pure as possible, this, under the circumstances, is done at the expense of nearly every other channel or conduit into which the impurities can drain, or are conducted to be kept until wanted. It is matter of difficulty to traverse the ups and downs of village roads and paths in any part of Germany with dry shoes. Taking the small stream as a point of departure, it is easy to see how the houses have agglomerated successively in various rows and angles, which their isolated

position does not show at a cursory glance, But could we read the annals of these German parishes, we should find much comparative value created by the vicinity of the stream, as allowing of an easier carriage of water to the stable, or a shorter drive for cattle to water, to say nothing of the convenience to ducks and geese, who can waddle and sleek their feathers in the brook almost under the eyes of their owner, and of its utility to the washing part of the family, whose bare legs and much-used linen are unanimously voted in no way to contaminate the living stream, which indeed they rarely tincture with soap.

The houses themselves offer a contrast to the diminutive holdings of which they are representatives. As we have already observed, they are out of all proportion large. In the Duchy of Cleves, they are moderate for the most part, owing to the gradually obtaining distinction between the agricultural and the other industrious classes, which tends to take land away from the one, and to augment the holdings of the others. In Westphalia we have noticed the extent of ground occupied by farming offices, which abstract considerably from the cultivated land, and entail great expense by outlay for repairs.

In the villages the houses are usually built of wooden frames, whose beams and standards are mortised into each other and bound and supported by sloping stays, the mortises being fastened by pegs throughout. Where timber abounds the wood most in use is oak. Near the Rhine fir and pine wood are used. The thickness of the wood is usually seven inches square, which conveniently holds a layer of bricks laid breadthwise in each compartment. The bricks are not always burnt, and the compartments are sometimes filled up with strong wicker-work which is plastered over. When the house is coated with lime or clay and whitewashed, the wooden frame is left conspicuous all over, and is often painted in fanciful colours. The value of the building is indicated by the thickness of the timber shown to be employed in this framework. Formerly, while timber was abundant and cheap, this style of building was recommended by economy; now

stone, which is almost always to be had, and bricks, are less expensive, excepting to the owners of forests. The house usually contains one or two sleepingrooms, besides a sitting-room and kitchen; sometimes the same number of rooms is found in an upper story. The roof is invariably lofty, and serves the purpose of storehouse and barn. In its spacious cavity the thrashed corn, the hay, and often the vegetable store for winter use are kept. The housewife dries her clothes in winter on the cross-beams. A cellar is invariably found in better houses, and in general when a stranger is told that these are the abodes of people little above the station of cottiers, he finds them splendid. When he hears that these cottiers are the landowners and masters of the soil, he scarcely knows how to estimate their position.

With the best will it is scarcely possible for a family employed in manual labour to keep a spacious house clean. Dirt accumulates in its passages, in its neglected or too much thronged rooms. Outside, the extensive front precludes all hope of constant neatness, and the expensive luxury is ultimately abandoned in despair.

The distance at which these village houses lie from the land their owners have to till absorbs the spare moments that might be employed with the broom, and the want of plan in laying out building-plots, where every man applies his own land to the purpose, constantly allows a neighbour to foil the best-directed efforts.

These drawbacks to cleanliness and external neatness are in part an effect of the German village system. In Holland the small farm-houses, with the road neatly clinkered in front, and unincumbered with useless buildings, offer a pleasanter picture to the English eye. But in Holland, as in England, trade has favoured that division of labour which is favourable to individual comfort, and in Germany this powerful lever has hitherto had little influence. What is most pleasing in the German village is, that the school is an indispensable requisite, and often a conspicuous ornament of the place. The village school is not intrusted to any bedridden dame or superannuated person of the male sex who