78

DOMESIIC MANNERS OF THE TKUSSIANS.

same roast veal and fruit, until you cannot bear the look oftlie disgusting medley.*

Family dinners are not, of course, so lavish as those attlie liotels; tmt generally, in the houses of well-to-do people,these consist of (1), soup; (2), bouilli; (3), sausages andvegetables; (4), kalbfieische and compöte; whilst the pro-fessors' families put up witb soup and boiled beef only, andthose of the very poor people have horse-meat instead of rind-fleische for their animal food.

Four o'clock is the hour for the " coffee-drinking;" andof this meal sausages or hard-boiled eggs are often the aecom-paniments. At the Kermes at Gülz, on the Mosel, we sawthe wife of an officer and (we suppose we must add) a gen-tleman, eat no less than four eggs as hard as we give to ourcanaries, besides a large hunk of Göttinger-ivurst, and a bigwedge of cake—in addition to a " portzi-ohn'' (portion, so pro-nounced) of coffee, and a glass mugful of " Maiwein" at alittle after thrce one Sunday afternoon.

Lastly, at eight o'clock, oecurs tiie " Abend-essen," orsupper, for which some of the lucky few who are blest witha sufficiency of groschens have a second edition of dinner,

* It is but just to except here the "Hotel de Treves," at Coblenz, the" Hof von Holland," in Cologne, and the " Goldenen Stern" at Bonn, wherethe best cooking throughout Rhenish Prussia is to be founcl. The price chargedfor dinner at the best tables d'hdte is 25 gros (2s Cd.) per head, including a pintof tolerable Tisch-weln. At the taverns, equivalent to our commercial inns,the Charge for dining at the table d'höte is 15 gros (ls. Gd. English). At the" Restaurations" the viands are sold by the plate, or " portion,"—mutton costingId. the portion and beef the same, whilst a small supply of ham may be had forId. Soup, again, is Id. the plate, and coffee Id. the cup. At one of thesuburban gardens our children and their maid had tea for 5d. (or Id. per head),which included coffee, sugar, milk, butter, &c. We remember an Englishgentleman giving a dinner to two others at one of the prineipal restaurations, thewhole expense of which did not amount to ls., even though three courses werepartaken of by the host and his guests.