THEIR PEESENT CONDITJON.

""■${.

.:.:.:-

reader will have a vivid notion of the present condition of thcRhenish folk as contrasted with that of our own country-men. Nor is this comparison made from any national in-vidiousness on our part; for if we add, that in many placesin Prussia, wolves, that were exterminated from England sixhundred years ago, are still allowed to infest the forests; andwitches, that we desisted from burning in the year 1716,were persecuted in Northern Prussia (where, Mr. Cohdensays, all are educated) only so recently as the year 1830,it will be seen that in placing the Rhenish people at onlyone hundred years behind our own, we incline to the liberalrather than the strict view of the case.

Well, in Coblenz, the only private carriage that appearsin the streets is the Princess's shandredan, hack-lookingbrougham,-—a " turn-out" about equal in style to one ofour " flies." The floors of even many of the Grafts' sitting-rooms are still uncarpeted, excepthig a narrow strip stretchedbefore the sofa, such as we in England place bcside ourservants' beds. The öCoblcnjtr SSettttng measures exactly 17inches by 11, and consists of four pages of such print andpaper as our illustrious Catnach used to devote to the "lastdying speeches" and "confessions" of the Newgate criminals,and contains neither leading articles nor criticism, nor indeedany further token of intellect on the part of the editor,than if it were a piece of "potichomania"—a pure work ofscissors and paste. The usual hour for tea-parties, or rather" coffee-drinking," is four in the afternoon, when scandalis propagated to an alarming extent. The mails are builtafter the style of our old-fashioned hackuey-coaches, andpersist, even in these days of rapid locomotion, in travelling attheir slow prototype's pace. Oxen are still used in the plouglisand wagons-—the same as they were in the time of theRomans, who first taught the people the arts of civilised life.

B 2