10
DOMESTIC MANNEBS OF THE PBUSSIANS.
to keep the "child of larger growth" f'rom rolling on to thefloor. The Prussian Standard of lieiglit for soldiers of the line de-scends as low as 5 feet 2 inches,* so that it will be readily under-stood that a box, which is little bigger than an orange-ehest,may still afford plenty of room for a Rhineländer to stretchhis legs in; though wlien an unlucky Englishman, who happensto stand 5 feet 10 out of his Wellingtons, comes to have hislimbs stowed away in a wooden trough of more limited dimen-sions than a berth in a Dover steamer, it can be readilyimagined that he must suffer the same physical inconveniencethroughout the night as Gulliver must have experienced whilsttaking a bed in Lilliput.
Further, bolsters are unknown in Rhineland; and as aSubstitute for a head-cushion, the sleeper is provided with halfa mattrass, made in the form of a slice of Cheshire cheeso: sothat, being condemned to sleep on an inclined plane, he keepssliding, as he dozes, down towards the end of the bed, andthus his soles are driven hard against the footboard; whilstin his drowsy struggles to straighten himself his cranium ispushed with eqnal force against the opposite extremity of thebed-press. The consequenee is, that on waking in the morningthe crown of the head feels positively as numb with the pres-sure as a Covent Garden market-woman's must after a hardday's porterage; while the legs are as stiff at the joints as aLondon cab-horse's.
Nor is this all. The Germans being innocent of the com-forts of under-blankets, even in the best-regulated families,expect the stranger to lie upon a horse-hair mattrass that hasmerely a sheet over it to protect the skin from the tick; so
* A German maid-serrant whora we brought with us to England, on passingthe Knightsbridge barracks, and seeing one of the Blues in his undress-jacketoutside the gate, exclaimed, "Lieber Gott.' Er ist ein grosser Mann!" (" GoodGod ! there is a big man!") adding immediately afterwards, " Why, our soldiersare not as long as one of his legs ! "