Why did the monks
never think of applying to such places the figure by which they
protested against the introduction of coffee, "the fumes of hell"? The
smoke of five hundred cigars or pipes rising to a ceiling which had been
thus smoked for centuries,--the hoarse hum of five hundred voices
uttering the German gutturals from tongues thickened by the use of beer,
and floating heavily through an atmosphere of densest smoke, dimming the
lights and turning all into an indefinite and uniform brown color,--this
may indeed be a picture of Elysium to some minds, but to ours it is not.
I never found a vacant seat there, nor felt a desire to occupy one, had
there been such. Stone mugs of double the size of the common glasses are
used, perhaps to save servants' labor in drawing, which is no small
matter, as a barrel of beer lasts not more than ten minutes at the
height of the drinking-time of the evening.
None of the drinking-places in the city are filled until evening. In the
afternoon many take their walks into the suburbs, and turn aside where a
glass may be had. On all holidays the whole city is adrift, much of it
in the surrounding country, and most of this drift lodges against the
suburban beer-houses.
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