painfully
monotonous. Few of the public buildings can be called handsome, or
even picturesque. The plaster used for the outer coating of the houses
is apt to discolor or flake off, so that the general aspect is that
of premature age. Worthy of note is the new city hall, a successful
effort to make an imposing and elegant structure of brick. In the
neighborhood of the Thiergarten the private residences evince taste
and refinement. Taken all in all, Berlin has not yet shaken off its
provincialism, and is far behind Vienna in drainage, water-supply
and paving. The Berlinese have much to do and undo before they can
rightfully call their city a _Weltstadt_.

In the matter of economy, at least, they are worthy of all praise.
No other community spends less in proportion to its income. From the
emperor down, each person seems to count his pence. This self-denial,
which borders at times on parsimony, is the result of training and
circumstances. The soil in the eastern part of the kingdom, and
especially around Berlin, is not fertile. It yields its crops only to
the most careful tillage. Moreover, prolonged struggles for political
existence and supremacy, with the necessity of being on the watch for
sudden wars and formidable invasions, have sharpened the wits of the
Berlinese and taught them the advisability of laying by for a rainy
day. The Viennese, on the contrary, live rather for the passing hour.
Austria is favored with an agreeable climate and an extremely fertile
soil. The immediate vicinity of Vienna is highly picturesque and
invites to merrymaking excursions, while life in the city is a hunt
after pleasure. The court and the nobility, once proverbial for
wealth, set an example of profuse expenditure which is followed by the
middle and even the lower classes.

Were it possible, by passing a magic wand over the Austrian duchies
and Vienna, to transform them into a Brandenburg or a Silesia, the
Eastern question would be much simplified. The entire valley of the
lower Danube, Hungary not excepted, suffers from a want of laborers.
Agriculture, mining and manufactures are in a primitive state unworthy
of the Middle Ages. The exhibition from Roumania at Vienna in 1873,
although arrayed tastefully, was a lamentable confession of poverty
and backwardness. Even Hungary, anxious to display her autonomy to
the best advantage, could show little more than the beginnings of
a change. The actual condition of the lower Danube is a re