trumpet heralded the announcement. What feverish anxiety,
what restless cupidity might be fostering among that crowd no man could
calculate, and certainly, to my mind, there was no worse thing done on
the Sunday in all Hamburg than this exhibition of legalised gambling.

Of course the theatres were open, and we of the working people were not
unfrequent visitors there. But let us thoroughly understand the nature
of a German theatrical entertainment. There is rarely more than one
piece, and the whole performance is usually included in the period of two
hours--from seven till nine. The parterre, or pit, is a mere promenade
or standing place, in which the few seats are let at a higher price than
the rest of the space. The whole of the arrangements are conducted with
the utmost decorum: so much so, that they would probably disappoint some
people who look upon the shouting, drovers' whistling, and "hooroar" and
hissing of some of our theatres as part of the legitimate drama. On the
Christmas day, when I had the option of getting gloriously fuddled with a
select party of English friends, or of entertaining myself in some less
orthodox way, I preferred to witness the opera of "Norma" at the Stadt
Theatre, and think I was the better for the choice. "Hamlet" was the
source of another Sunday evening's gratification (an anniversary play of
the Hamburgers, and intensely popular with the Danes), although with
unpardonable barbarity the German censors entirely blotted out the
gravediggers, and never buried the hapless, "sweet Ophelia." In the
gallery of the Imperial Opera House at Vienna, liveried servants hand
sweetmeats, ices, and coffee about between the acts; and although the
Hamburger theatricals have not yet reached this stage of refinement,
there is much in the shape of social convenience in their arrangement,
which even we might copy.

Sometimes, we workmen spent a pleasant hour or two in the concert-rooms,
of which there were several admirably conducted; or pored hours long over
the papers, chiefly literary, in the Alster Halle; sipping our coffee,
and listening in the pauses of our reading to the band of choice
musicians, who played occasionally through the evening. Sometimes we
dived into snug cellars, where they sold good beer, or mixed odoriferous
punch; and here again music would come, though in a more questionable
shape, her attendant priestesses being the wandering harp-players, who
sang sentimental ditties to