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have been made, and, perhaps, contain the germ of a
healthy and useful development. At all events it be-
hoves all in this age of change and reformation not to
pass over the picture presented to us by the Germans,
of what a people can preserve through difficulties, if
we do not find in it how far judicious enterprise might
be carried.
In the German village, to begin with the higher
elements, the church is neither the property of the
patron nor of the incumbent, nor is it vested in trustees
for the benefit of the inhabitants. It belongs to the
parish, or “ Gemeinde,” as the associated householders
arc called in German. The school, in the same man-
ner, and all public institutions or buildings, roads, or
water-courses, often mills and industrial establishments,
that have been constructed at the expense of, or pre-
sented by patrons to, the village, are the property of the
little community. But it will be said that persons
must represent all corporations, to sue and to be sued.
The German village is represented by one or more head-
boroughs according to its size, who have the honourable
charge of protecting the public property, both against
official and private aggression. The consequence of this
retention of the management of their affairs in the
villagers’ own hands, has been a remarkable conservation
of village property, and every member of a Gemeinde
has the satisfaction of thinking that he is not alone
herded with others in a county division for the purpose
of facilitating taxation or militia returns, but that he is
a member of an active association, which has life im-
parted to it by a sense of its holding property which
must be managed and turned to account. It is most
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85
interesting to hear the men to whom the direction of
these village affairs is intrusted (and the office was long
elective, being given only to such as deserved public
confidence) on the manifold questions arising from the
management of this property. Their circumspection,
blended with the quiet manner of expressing themselves
which is peculiar to respectable men of all classes in
Germany, has often the appearance of slowness ; and to
those not better acquainted with them, would seem to
indicate a good-natured easiness that would lead them to
be duped. This notion is soon dispelled when business
has to be transacted, and it then becomes evident that
the peasant has often best considered his opinion before
he pronounced it, and others are often glad to come round
to it. Within a short period the privilege of electing
their headborough has been taken from the villagers of
Prussia. The central point of meeting in every village is
some favourite inn. At nightfall the men of any stand-
ing usually resort to it as a lounge. They meet there
the officials of the magistracy, if there be any, the tax-
gatherer, and those who either, having no establishment, are
boarders with the host, or who seek the spot to exchange
opinions with their neighbours. In the early part of the
evening, the pastor may be seen amongst them, and his
presence indicates that propriety is not supposed to be
violated by such meetings so long as order is maintained.
Whoever is sufficiently master of the language to follow
the peculiar tone of the conversation, w,hich is anything
but wordy—if he be indurated to tobacco fumes, will carry
away w ith him from a few sittings, the ideaof a people ma-
naging their own little interests with full consciousness—∙
with an attention to economy that is most praiseworthy—