GERMAN DINNERS.

77

The Prussians, like most savage tribes, are continuallyeating; not that their gastric capacities amount to those ofthe Samoiedes, who are said to consume teil pomids of foodbesides a dozen tallow-candles in a day; but their meals recurat such short intervals that they seem to find their chiefdelight in feeding every two or three liours. As our cook-maids, when they go to the theatre, usually take a basket ofprovisions with them and munch now a piece of cold pudding,and now an apple, while they whimper over the sorrowsof " the heroine of the domestic drama;" so a Prussian ladynever attends a " Grosses Concert " in a public wine-garden,or a village " Schützenfest," (shooting-feast,) but what shemust have her raw sausages or her hard-boiled eggs as re-freshment there, even though it be but a couple of hours afterdinner.

Early in the morning there is the "Frühstück," (literally,the early bit, or, in piain English, breakfast,) and this con-sists of a cup of so-called coffee and a slice or two of blackbread. Then at ten o'clock comes another coffee-drinking —" Zehn-ure, essen" — at which more black (or among richerfolks, whitey-brown) bread is eaten. At twelve or one followsthe dinner, which at the tables oVhote consists of the sameeternal dishes:

Ist course, soup.

2nd, boiled beef.

3rd, cutlets, sausages, and sauer-kraut.

4th, fish and pudding.

5th, roast meat, birds, preserves, and salad.

6th, dessert, coffee, cards, and cigars.Go where you will, you are sure to get the same invariablemesses—the same bouilli with the same sauce—the same ever-lasting sponge-cake pudding—the same breaded cutlets—the