Page:Letters from Abroad to Kindred at Home (Volume 1).djvu/223

220 ! On prie le bono Dieu tout le Dimanche—ça n'amuse pas!"

I can believe that England would be to a German traveller with stinted means one continued fast and penance.

We saw to-day fifty peasants gathered under a chestnut-tree, and an auction going on; but, as we saw no wares, we were at a loss what to make of it, till we were told the duke's chestnuts were selling. Chestnuts are an article of food here. This neighbourhood abounds in thriving nurseries, which are a main source of revenue to the peasants. There is one on the hill-side opposite my window. It covers thirty acres, and is divided into small proprieties and owned by the peasants of Kronberg, to whom it brings an annual revenue of 10,000 florins ($4000): a shower of gold on these children of toil and hardship.

A labourer in haying and harvesting, the busiest season of the year, is paid one florin 12 kreutzers a day (fifty cents), and finds himself, and works earlier and later than our people. If he works for several days consecutively for one employer, he is allowed a trifle more as drink-geld. A female domestic in a family where only one servant is kept is fed and paid twenty florins a year (eight dollars!!); and for this pitiful sum she gives effective, patient,