Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 15, No. 87, March, 1875

"You pity poor Ned," said she, now sobbing, "but you don't pity poor me at all, and I am the most wretched."

"Come, don't cry, Eva," I said, putting my arm around her: it was very dark in that corner, and I knew Eva would not fuss about it, as a certain other person did not long ago. "What shall I do for you, my dear? Do you want Ned back? I'll tell him and make it up between you: shall I?"

"No, no! He is so cross and fierce that I should be afraid of him: he was dreadfully ill-tempered when he left me that night."

"But that was because he loved you, Eva."

"When people love me I don't want them to be disagreeable: I should not want to vex any one if I loved him."

"You will make a dear, kind, amiable little wife, I know."

"But I don't want to marry Mr. Todd," she said, still sobbing on my shoulder. "Oh, Charley, what shall I do?"

Could I find a lovelier, more tender, sweeter wife than the girl now in my arms? My ideas of affectionate women had changed, dating from about two weeks back, and the conduct of Miss Blanche, who would neither see me nor speak to me since that afternoon, strengthened me in the opinion that a woman is best with some heart. Was it any wonder, then, that I decided on the spot to answer Eva's question of "Charley, what shall I do?" by saying "Marry me, my dear: 'tis the only way I see for you to get out of the scrape"? Just as my resolve became fixed I heard footsteps near. In another moment, scarcely giving Eva time to wipe her eyes, those three sisters, the Greys, came trooping by, and stopped in front of us.

"Spooning as usual?" remarked one of them to me.

"Miss Eva, won't you ask Mr. Todd to give him a lesson in proposing? I don't believe he knows how to do it. A deplorable state of ignorance!" said another.

A merry group soon joined them, and I did not get another chance that evening. However, I went to my room happy, for I knew I should be successful on the morrow. Eva loved me: her mother had said as much when I overheard her in the arbor on the mountain-side, and I knew Aunt Stunner would have no objection, as my income exceeded Todd's. In an easy-chair by the open window I thought over my resolution, and counted myself a fortunate man. In the midst of this reverie the door burst open, shut with a bang, and Ned Hardcash threw himself on a fauteuil opposite me.

"What's up now?" I cried. "Has Harry Basset lost?" Ned was always deep on the turf, and I could think of nothing else that would cut him up so much.

"D—n Harry Basset! I say, Charley, haven't you some brandy?"

"Too hot for brandy to-night," I said: "take some of this," pushing him a bottle.

"Stuff!" and he looked at it contemptuously. "If you can't treat a poor devil more like a man when he comes, he will go;" and he rose with a jerk.

"Sit down, old fellow! or rather go to that closet and get what you want—enough there for a night or two."

He looked the worse for hard drink already, but of course I could not refuse him if he wanted it. It is true politeness, if your friend wants to commit suicide, to sharpen the razor for him and ask no questions. I leaned back while he mixed a glass with seltzer and drank it greedily. Finally, when he looked more composed, I said, "I want to ask you a question, Ned." I thought of Blanche Furnaval's strange conduct on seeing Ned before me, and resolved to ask him if he could explain it. "I believe you know something about the queer ways of women. Can you tell—"

"Look here, Charley," he broke out savagely: "I want one thing understood. You are always teasing and bothering about the women; and as you have not got a piece of flesh as big as a pea for a heart, you will never understand anything about them; so, if you don't want to set me crazy, just let that subject down while I am here."

"It's a woman, then," I said, forgetting in my surprise to be angry. "Cheer up, old boy! You will soon get over it: no woman's worth it."

"Not to you, perhaps, but it may be the contrary with me," he answered moodily.

There was a long silence. I smoked, he drank: at last I broke it by saying unconsciously, "She is a dear little thing." My thoughts had reverted to Eva.

"Ah, you saw it?" cried Ned eagerly. "Then I can talk to you about it. You may well say she is a dear little thing. She is an angel—too good for a fellow like me. But the poor child dotes on me: that is the hardest part of the cursed thing. How she laid her head on my shoulder and cried, and said she did not want to marry that other fellow, d—n him! It almost broke my heart," he continued dejectedly, "and it is not of the stuff that breaks easily. I told her I would take her off and we would run for it, though Heaven knows what we should do afterward. Sometimes it seems as if I could not bear it. I wish I could strangle Todd: that would be some comfort."

"What makes you so savage against old Todd?"

"Don't you know he and Eva are engaged? All owing to the interference of that old Stunner. What business was it of hers, I wonder? And poor Eva disliking him as she does, and so unhappy about it, and I can't help her! My cursed luck, always;" and Ned heaved a brandy-and-seltzer sigh.

Yes, it was Eva. I had forgotten all she had told me about Ned, or rather she had not told me as much as he did. She sobbed on his shoulder, did she? His shoulder! disgusting! She dote on him! he comfort her! It was horrible! A sudden idea struck me. "Did you kiss her, Ned?" I asked gruffly.

"You are asking a d–d impertinent question, old fellow, and of course I sha'n't answer you;" and he tried to make his drunken face look grave.

I should have liked to throw him out of the window, but the question was, as he said, hardly one to be asked; and then, if she allowed it, what right had I—It was enough. It might be pleasant to have an affectionate wife, but no drinking gambler like Ned Hardcash should ever be able to say or remember that he had kissed the mistress of The Beauties.

I was sad at heart: hope now failed me. Poor little Eva! I must bury her image with the "wild rose," with "my star," with the "sympathizing friend." All, all are emptiness—are names, are dreams. The poets were old-fogy chaps: they never saw the women of to-day, and well for them they did not.

I am still unmated: I bear the loneliness that awaits all great excellence. The sun has no companion in glory; the moon shines alone; there was but one phoenix; the white elephant is solitary. So it must be with me. I am not misanthropic: I have learned to bear my superiority with philosophy. I was groomsman at Eva's wedding the other day, and gave her a handsome present, as it was expected I should. I still like my fellow-beings, and fulfill the duties of life to the best of my abilities. I flirt, I dance, walk, drive, pursue my usual occupations, give bachelor-parties at The Beauties, and have grown contented from habit, but I am a confirmed old—or shall I say young?—bachelor.

    ITA ANIOL PROKOP.

MUNICH AS A PEST-CITY

From a time whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary, Munich has had the reputation of being an exceptionally unhealthy place. All ancient towns have their legends of desolating plagues, the record of an ignorant defiance of sanitary laws, but such stories are especially numerous in the traditions of Munich, and are connected with circumstances which show that epidemic diseases were formerly extremely frequent and virulent in that City.

The absurd festival of the "Metzger-Sprung" (Butchers' Leap), which takes place annually on the Monday before Ash-Wednesday, when butcher-boys attain to the second grade of their apprenticeship by dressing themselves in long robes trimmed with calves' tails, and springing into the old fountain in the Marien-Platz in the face of an admiring crowd, is held in commemoration of a similar frolic contrived several hundred years ago by lads of the same trade during the prevalence of a horrible epidemic, for the purpose of tempting the frightened citizens out of their gloomy houses into fresh air and merriment, which these sensible youths had concluded to be the best safeguards against disease. The grotesque procession of the "Schäffler-Tanz" (Coopers' Dance), which occurs once in every seven years, just before the Carnival, has a similar origin. One of the favorite myths of Munich is that of an enormous dragon which lived in the ground beneath the city and poisoned all the wells with his venomous breath, until, being at last lured to the surface by seeing his reflection in a mirror held above a certain spring, a brave knight slew him and saved the people from further destruction. The former imminence of danger from pestilence is shown also in the songs of the night-watchmen, who every hour exhorted to prayer for exemption from the plague, as well as from the terrors of fire, sword and famine.

And this evil fame still clings to Munich, in spite of all that has been done to improve its condition, and of all that has been written to purge it of its contempt. Efforts of the latter kind have indeed been prodigious, increasing with the growing importance of the place as a centre of education in science and art. Local medical authorities issue from time to time ingenious pamphlets on hygienic investigations, with particular application to the suspicion under which their city labors in this regard; the newspapers keep up the whitewashing process with diligence, not forgetting to hold up frequently before their readers the sanitary shortcomings of Vienna and Berlin; nay, the traveler is met at the very threshold of his hotel by a tiny tract containing not only a list of the principal sights, but also a comforting assurance that the climate is not so bad as has been represented, and that by wearing sufficient wrappings and avoiding the ordinary drinking water, strangers may hope to accomplish their visit and escape unharmed. Surely no other city takes such benevolent pains to reassure its inhabitants and instruct and warn its stranger-guests: perhaps it is because deeds have not kept pace with words that assertion and argument have hitherto failed of the desired effect. The protracted, repeated cholera epidemic of 1873-74 may well challenge a close observation of the situation, surroundings and sanitary condition of Munich as a means of ascertaining the causes of this exceptional visitation, as well as of the continual existence of an indigenous disease which, more than almost any other, is dependent upon circumstances within the power of man to control.

Instead, therefore, of constructing the cholera and the typhus out of our "inner consciousness," as certain of the physicians and hygienists of Munich, in true German fashion, appear disposed to do, let us look at some of the facts of the case—facts sufficiently obvious to be perceptible to any person of intelligence, and the nature of which is so well understood as to be accepted at once as bearing closely upon the subject in question.

And first, as to climate. Considering that the cholera, from which Munich suffers more at every visitation than almost any other European city, and typhus, which is always at home within its limits, are not, properly speaking, climatal diseases, it would seem at first sight unnecessary to consider the situation of Munich in this respect. But while the principal object of the present paper is to indicate the causes of the above-mentioned plagues, the fact should not be lost sight of that nearly all known diseases flourish in this unfortunate city, many of them owing to its exceptionally bad climate, while the sudden and extreme changes of temperature which occur in every season of the year have a tendency to aggravate those ills which find their sources in more preventable conditions.

Munich stands upon a high, barren plain, sixteen hundred feet above the level of the sea, exposed to the full power of the sun in summer, brooded over by chilly fogs in spring and autumn, and swept the whole year through by all the storms that accumulate upon the mountains filling the horizon to the south and east. The air is mountain-air, minus the aroma and stimulus of evergreen forests, and plus the miasma of miles of marsh and peat-land and the foulnesses of the city exhalations. It is the thin air of a high elevation, pleasantly bracing to persons so fortunate as to possess nerves of iron and lungs of leather, but extremely irritating to sensitive brains and delicate chests, and too exhausting, after a time, in its demands upon the most abundant vitality. It is the boast of certain physicians in Munich that consumption is rare in that city, but the weekly report of deaths would seem to contradict this assertion. Certain it is that diseases of the throat and lungs are very common, especially during the spring, and that all the rest of the year the whole population suffers more or less from catarrh. Perhaps if there be less of consumption than one would expect to find in such a climate, it is because those who would otherwise be its victims are carried off early by acute inflammation of the implicated organs. "Of course, if these die in the beginning, they cannot die at a later period," as a recent medical writer has wisely and wittily pointed out to certain amateur statisticians who would fain reduce the mortality of Munich by leaving out of view the immense percentage of infant deaths.