CORRESPONDENCE.
NOTES BY THE WAY ON BEATEN TRACKS.-1II.
(FROM A CORRESFONDENT.) Heiden, August 2811i-31st, 1878.
I NEVER wish to live in a lovelier spot than this upland village or townlet of Appenzell. Even hills on three sides, of the most
graceful outlines, the rich meadow-land, varied with the darker foliage of trees, now detached, now in clumps, now in small woods ; on the fourth side, the eastern end of the Bodensee, framed by the tamer line of the Bavarian hills, but ever beautiful in itself, through the constant variety in the play of light and
shade over its surface. It is true, as was said to me the first day, that "es regnet firmer viel in Heiden ;" but the rain seldom spoils the beauty of the landscape, only limits its horizon, and a shower passing in the distance over the lake in slant masses of gloom, or a white mist floating as a vest of gauze upon it, only adds a new charm. The Bodensee is, I think, under- valued. Of course, it has not the marvellous picturesqueness of the Lake of the Four Cantons. But there is a repose about it which is wanting in the latter. The variety in the cloud-forms is, I think, greater than I have ever observed elsewhere ; there seem to be never less than two strata in sight at a time. I like, too, these Appenzellers. They are about as good speci- mens as can be found of what is, after all, an uncommonly good national type. In this little place, of 3,000 inhabitants, there is a printer and a bookbinder (there were two, but one has just become bankrupt, through his wife's extravagance, it is said) ; a general newspaper is published twice a week, besides a religious one. In a house by no means of the highest pretensions, where em- broidery is sold, we found a splendid piano, a harmonium, and the whole volume of Bach's "Preludes." The bakers turn out rolls which would make the fortune of a London shop, and the most delicate pastry. Towards the railway, constructed on the cog- wheel principle, like that of the Itighi, which connects it with Rorschach, Heiden has contributed 500,000 francs. Think of that for one moment,-120,000 given by 3,000 people, or more than .E6 a head, towards a public work, in addition to the ordinary expenses of communal government, and this in a Canton where no public functionary receives more than .E8 a year ! I am sorry to say, indeed, that the railway does not cover its expenses, and that Heiden will have to decide this autumn whether it will pay something more, or revert to the original omnibus. It is difficult, indeed, to see whence this wealth pro- ceeds. Heiden's two sources of profit are the whey-cure, which attracts invalids ; and the embroidering on cotton and linen, or mixed tissues, which is carried on in almost every cottage, chiefly (through the wholesale houses of St. Gallen) for the English and Indian markets ; and trade has been, and is still, extremely slack. The whey-cure costs 8d. a day, hotel and " pension " prices are not above the average, and the embroidery sells at prices which seem extremely low, by the side of London ones. Nothing but the honest thrift of the people can account for the fact, but even so, it remains as much a problem as how Swiss meadows, full of dandelion and hawkweed, buttercups, poisonous autumn crocus, and those horrid Swiss thistles, which have not even a gleam of colour to recom- mend them, can produce the delicious milk and butter which one meets with almost everywhere. Pauperism there is visibly none. There are plenty of bare legs, but no rags, and lace frequently bare- legged girls carrying umbrellas. The wooden houses (sometimes with a stone ground-floor) look all substantial, and are often extremely pretty,—perhaps most so at the two extremes of their existence, either when soft with the satiny cream-colour of the new wood before it
is varnished, or when weather-stained by age into streaks of the richest velvety-browns. Except a gimcrack kursaal, in sham-
Moresque architecture, and an ugly modern church, whose tower, however, stands out well at a certain distance, there is not one vulgar or really ugly building in the place. Yet Heiden has its
own source of bitterness. Small as it is, and peaceful as it seems, it is divided into three parties, and creed is again the divider.
There are the Roman Catholics, who indeed are not numerous, and have not even a church of their own ; and among the Pro- testants there are Liberal and Orthodox. The Liberals have got possession of the parish church, and compel the Orthodox, who have their own minister and worship, to contribute to church expenses. In the churchyard, however, almost every inscription breathes the simplest piety. I was struck with one or two :—" It befell suddenly,—God's will ;" and this exquisite one over the grave of a child, "From God to God." The school-house is, of course, as in every Swiss village, the finest building in the place, and the children are mostly sturdy and healthy-lookiug. The elder boys, attending a "Real-Schule," are drilled vigorously with sticks on certain afternoons, and seem to take to it. Heiden has, moreover, its "Turn-verein " and its " Gesang-verein," besides a natural-history museum.
On the Sunday after our arrival, Heiden was unusually noisy. A corps of riflemen came in for an afternoon's shooting, and the town was visited by a singing society from Outer Rhodes, the Roman Catholic half-canton of Appenzell. As the riflemen had also their band, which at times sang in chorus, the playing and singing were incessant from about one o'clock till somewhat late at night. The riflemen, I was told, were all young peasants, well-knit, active young fellows ; and I must say that, considering what the Swiss military system is, I thought they might have spent their Sunday afternoon much worse than in practising with their rifles in order to be able to defend their country, if ever called upon to do so. Indeed, just as I hate German militarism, pressing like a dead- weight on the country, just so much do I value the hearty, armed patriotism of the Swiss ; and when, with their somewhat rough, though not discordant, voices the young fellows sang out a patriotic song, with its burthen, " Fiir Freiheit und Vaterland," I could not help feeling that "Freedom and Fatherland" were no empty words to this little people.
What a blessing Switzerland is to Europe ! It is the only country between the Baltic, the Mediterranean, and the Atlantic where an Englishman feels himself once more altogether amongst freemen, in a land where "a man may speak the thing he will." Switzerland has of course its ugly sides. "Point d'argent, point de Suisse," is still in many respects true. There are classes and localities simply demoralised by foreign holiday-making. But nevertheless there is in the true Swiss character a free-born straightforwardness which one misses almost everywhere on the Continent. Our hostess here was predicting bad weather. I told her she did not flatter us. "If I think so, why should I not say it ?" she replied, with perfect simplicity. I doubt if there be a German or a French hostess, an Italian or a Spaniard, that could have used such an expression, unless to deceive. This straightforwardness goes, moreover, hand-in-hand with thorough courtesy. As in many other parts of Switzerland, scarcely a man or a boy passes you without a greeting of some kind—a touch of the hat, a nod, mostly a word. And this has nothing of the obsequiousness of an English clod trying to "do the civil" to his betters, and doing that for "the quality" which he never thinks of doing to one of his "mates." The Swiss greets you, a stranger, in precisely the same manner as he greets one of his own countrymen. It is the courtesy of true democracy,—paying homage to man as man. The insolence of the ill-bred English boy towards anything strange or likely to bear insult patiently is conspicuously absent. The other morning, a little girl of about seven, walking with an urchin of about three, whom I met a little way out of the village, made him put out his band to place it in mine, and then shyly offered me her own. Of course, there is very much of the same sort of courtesy in many parts of Germany, but it has not quite the same flavour. The German peasant does not greet you with exactly the same frankness. You may be a " Durchlaucht" in disguise.
I do not wish to disparage the Germans by comparison with the Swiss. The South Germans in particular are kind-hearted, cheery fellows, quite devoid of the arrogance of their Prussian brethren of the North. But it is impossible not to see that the two sides of the Lake of Constance are inhabited by two different peoples. A glance at the map even will show it. If both sides of the lake had belonged to the Swiss, would the whole northern shore, except the little bit eastward of Lindau, be without a railway skirting it ? The Swiss coast is steeper, and yet a line runs along it the whole way, to the Vorarlberg frontier. I know the Swiss begin to say that they have too many railways, and the subvention to the St. Gothard line is, with the religious question, the great subject of contention in Swiss politics. But if any nation has a right to boast of its railway system, considering the difficulties it had to overcome, it is Switzerland. The German of our days is full of the spirit of individual enterprise. German merchants compete sharply with our own in India, in our colonies, in Manchester, in London. German hotel-keepers are everywhere. German travellers are among the boldest of our age. It is in the spirit of collective enterprise that the Swiss beats the German. The free, bold action of the Swiss canton and commune have no parallel in German political life. Nothing but the long habit of self-government could have developed these two marvels of European democracy,—the Swiss military system and Swiss education. And is it not doubly marvellous that such results should have proceeded from a confederacy whose com- ponent members differ so widely in constitution as the Swiss Cantons? Here, in Appenzell-ausser-Rhoden, for instance, the constitution is one of the most singular that can be imagined. The laws are voted by direct universal suffrage, and administered only by the rich, every public function being fulfilled either quite or very nearly gratuitously, for honour's sake only. The poor, it may be said, tax the rich, and the rich do their work for them. It is only quite recently that taxation itself has been made to reach the mere working-man. And yet, I repeat it, the country is most orderly, well-to-do, well-educated.
Perhaps it may be thought that the working-men manage to secure to themselves very high wages. By no means. I went to .day to see one of the so-called embroidery factories in Heiden, where four looms are worked. The men are now earning at the rate of 2 f. 30 c. a day (they are paid by the number of stitches, so much a hundred), out of which they pay 1 f. to a workwoman,. leaving them is. id. a day, or 6s. 6d. a week ! Nor is this to be deemed continuous pay throughout the year. As in the Spital- fields trade, the time for setting the loom must be deducted, which for these embroidery frames amounts to about a month. In pros- perous times, and with profitable designs, a man may earn 45. a day, less always the payment to his workwoman. Were it not for the cheapness of living, it will be seen that these are at the best what we should call starvation wages. Fortunately, at least, there are no steam-engines, to defoul earth, air, and water, steam- power applied to embroidery having proved a failure. The com- petition is only between the loom and the band. Hence the workers at the Heiden embroidery loom are only a shade less high-coloured than their brethren outside, and have nothing in their appearance to remind one of a Manchester operative. L.
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