op. The service takes three of the best years of a
young man's life. Most of the soldiers in Munich are young one meets
hundreds of mere boys in the uniform of officers. I think every
seventh man you meet is a soldier. There must be between fifteen and
twenty thousand troops quartered in the city now. The young officers
are everywhere, lounging in the cafes, smoking and sipping coffee, on
all the public promenades, in the gardens, the theaters, the
churches. And most of them are fine-looking fellows, good figures in
elegantly fitting and tasteful uniforms; but they do like to show
their handsome forms and hear their sword-scabbards rattle on the
pavement as they stride by. The beer-gardens are full of the common
soldiers, who empty no end of quart mugs in alternate pulls from the
same earthen jug, with the utmost jollity and good fellowship. On
the street, salutes between officers and men are perpetual,
punctiliously given and returned,--the hand raised to the temple, and
held there for a second. A young gallant, lounging down the
Theatiner or the Maximilian Strasse, in his shining and snug uniform,
white kids, and polished boots, with jangling spurs and the long
sword clanking on the walk, raising his hand ever and anon in
condescending salute to a lower in rank, or with affable grace to an
equal, is a sight worth beholding, and for which one cannot be too
grateful. We have not all been created with the natural shape for
soldiers, but we have eyes given us that we may behold them.

Bavaria fought, you know, on the wrong side at Sadowa; but the result
of the war left her in confederation with Prussia. The company is
getting to be very distasteful, for Austria is at present more
liberal than Prussia. Under Prussia one must either be a soldier or
a slave, the democrats of Munich say. Bavaria has the most liberal
constitution in Germany, except that of Wurtemberg, and the people
are jealous of any curtailment of liberty. It seems odd that anybody
should look to the house of Hapsburg for liberality. The attitude of
Prussia compels all the little states to keep up armies, which eat up
their substance, and burden the people with taxes. This is the more
to be regretted now, when Bavaria is undergoing a peaceful
revolution, and throwing off the trammels of galling customs in other
respects.

THE EMANCIPATION OF MUNICH

The 1st of September saw go into complete effect the laws enacted in
1867, which have inaugurated th