We had a great deal of trouble to get out of Mannheim. All German railroad officials are in uniform, and the regulations are about as strict in the railroad service as in the military. The train we were compelled to take left at six o’clock in the morning, and we were at the station promptly. That is, we had four of five minutes in which to get our tickets, see to our baggage and go on. We hurried to the little window in the ticket-office, but it was down. Through the window we could see the official in an ordinary coat, and we knocked on the glass. He did not open it, but sat there, nervously consulting his watch. The minutes were rushing on, tumbling over each other with frightful rapidity. But still he did not open the window, and we were ticketless, and the train was within a minute of departure.

What was the matter? Why simply this: The ticket agent had sent his uniform coat out to be brushed and the boy had not returned with it. He would no more think of selling a ticket except with that blue coat on, buttoned up to the chin, and with every button there, than he would have thought of cutting off his right hand. It mattered not that passengers were waiting, it mattered not that the engine was whistling its last warning notes, that coat was not brushed and on the official’s back, and no tickets could be sold till it was.

Fortunately the boy came with the coat, the official got it on somehow, the train waited two or three minutes, tickets were sold hurriedly and we did get away.

What would have happened if the boy had not come back with the coat at all, no one can answer.

Certainly no one would have got tickets till he got his coat, and we should all have missed our train.

Red-tape is a great institution, and nowhere do you see more of it than in Germany. But we got away finally to Frankfort.

Contrasting strangely with Mannheim’s straight streets and quiet unpretentious business blocks, is the very peculiar city of Frankfort, where within a stone’s throw of each other are streets so entirely different, that in one you may imagine yourself on Broadway, while in the other you may with equal propriety consider yourself set back five or six hundred years.

New Frankfort is the newest city I know of. It is more fresh and recent than Broadway. It is very like Broadway, except that its buildings are less garish, and more solidly built.

The line between the old and the new is only a street, and the old is the oldest in Europe, as the new is the newest. The contrast is wonderful. It is the fourteenth century and the nineteenth shaking hands across the chasm of time. It is the mediÆval knight and the London exquisite side by side. The same may be seen in all European cities, but nowhere so striking as in Frankfort.

Approaching the city you see the old watch towers high on the hills that surround the environs of Frankfort, those remaining monuments of the reign of force, when the people, ruled mercilessly by the nobles, erected these towers from which the usurpers watched each other. Germany is not yet free from this kind of rule; it has merely taken a different form. Gunpowder changed the form of force, but not its spirit. These once impregnable fortresses would not stand a minute before the artillery of the present, and so they are abandoned. But in their stead are the regiments we saw in Mannheim and everywhere else, each one a fortress of flesh and blood. Germany will get rid of the whole of it one of these days, and the million of men employed to support that one unmitigated curse of the world, royalty, will be added to the productive power of the country instead of living upon it.

As we leave the fine station and enter the wide “Anlagen,” or public grounds, that completely encircle the city and are lined with handsome buildings, it is hard to realize that the city of Frankfort dates from the time of Charlemagne, and that it has for centuries played an important part in the history of Germany. From the year 1152 the German emperors were chosen in Frankfort.

The Kaiser-strasse leads directly to the center of the city, and is lined with magnificent business blocks and dwellings. The street is wide and well kept, the buildings are all of the modern style of architecture, built of cut stone, and they present a fresh and attractive appearance.

Speaking of buildings in European cities, it would be fortunate for us of America if we could imitate them ever so slightly. In London I visited a steam fire engine house, and was amused at the clumsiness of the apparatus, and the slowness in general of the entire concern. The horses, for instance, were stabled around a corner! In New York the horses are in the same room with the engine, fastened so they may be unhitched by electricity, the men sleep in their clothes above, and everything is arranged so that in one second the engine is on the street, and on its way to the fire on a run.

“How long does it take you to get out upon the street?” I asked.

“From seven to ten minutes.”

“Why, in America we get out in two and one-half seconds.”

“Y-a-a-s, and so would we, if we built tinder boxes.”

There he had me and had me badly. There is no necessity for rapid and extensive fire departments in Europe, for the houses are not mere lumber yards, as with us. When a man wants to build in a European city he has to get a license. His plans are submitted to the authorities, and, if approved, a proper authority stands over the work and sees that it is properly built. You are not permitted to run up a fire trap in the midst of valuable property; you are not permitted to build a showy sham that may be burned to the ground in ten minutes. Nothing of the sort. Your walls must be solid, your staircases of stone, and open, not of pine with the space under them for coal-oil depositories, there must be so many escapes from the building, the roof must be metal or slate, and the walls must be so built that a fire cannot get beyond the room in which it originates, and the only damage that can possibly result is the destruction of the contents of the room, and such damage as smoke and water may inflict. When a fire occurs in one room in a house, the people in the other rooms keep on as usual. It does not annoy them, for the fire cannot spread.

No one dreads to occupy a room on the fourth floor of a European hotel, for the idea of fire never occurs to one. They seldom have fires, and when one occurs it is counted a misdemeanor on the part of the owner of the premises.

This all comes of solid and substantial buildings, to begin with. As a matter of course, a house costs something at the start, but when you get through you have a house for all time. The modern buildings in Frankfort will be standing and in good repair centuries hence. I wish I could live to verify this assertion, but I suppose I shall not.

Going on through the Kossmarkt, where there is a fine monument to Gutenberg, we came to the Zeil, a very beautiful street, and then, turning to the right, found ourselves in the celebrated Judengasse, or Jews’ street, one of the most dingy, wretched, forlorn quarters that can well be imagined.

The street is narrow, dirty, and squalid. The houses are high structures in the last stages of decay, many of them having great props to keep them from falling. The inmates of these apologies for houses are as dirty and squalid as the street itself. There are little pawn shops, dirty shops where old clothes are sold, an occasional tenement house, and very many liquor stores. It is the very acme of squalor and is in great contrast with the elegance of the Zeil, only a block or two away.

A dirty, squalid, beggarly-looking street is Judengasse, but who knows what wealth is hidden behind all this apparent poverty? The Jew of to-day is no less acute than the Jew of the fourteenth century. He has all the wisdom of his ancestors in money getting, with the added experience of time. He can no longer be hauled up by a mailed knight, and compelled to disgorge; but in the stead of the robber, by the strong hand, there is the tax-gatherer; and, in his passion for the accumulation of wealth and disinclination to part with it, the Frankfort Israelite hates the one as heartily as his ancestor did the other. The American Israelite lives as bravely and ostentatiously as any man, and even more so, but the habit in the old European cities is to conceal wealth, to live meanly, and to find enjoyment, not in the using of money but its accumulation.

This street has always been set apart for Jews, and down to the year 1806 it was closed every evening, and on Sundays and holidays, throughout the entire day, and no one of its inhabitants were allowed in any other part of the city, under heavy penalty. Until the time of the Prince Primate, in 1806, no Jew was ever allowed to enter the RÖmerberg, or market place in front of the town hall. It is said that while the persecutions of the Jews from the twelfth to the seventeenth century throughout the continent was merciless, it continued longer in Germany than any other country, coming down, in Frankfort, even to the present century.

Notwithstanding the abridgement of their rights, a great many of the Jews attained wealth and distinction. The house is still pointed out in Judengasse where the Rothschilds, the founders of the present great banking house, lived during those troublous times.

It is the same old story. The Jews, despised, persecuted and outraged in every way, bore everything patiently, waiting for the time for their revenge. And their revenge has come in every country. In the olden days, in all the countries of Europe, the Jew had no rights which any other nationality or blood was bound to respect. He was outside of the law. He was taxed at the caprice of every prince and power. He had no chance in any court where a Christian was opposed to him, and when they differed among themselves, it was made a pretext to rob him. The most absurd laws were made against them, and it really seemed as though the native rulers and their subjects laid awake nights to invent ways to oppress them.

All this has changed. With a power of endurance simply wonderful, they bowed their heads to their oppressors, and, as all oppressed people do, substituted cunning for brute strength, and trained minds for lusty thews and sinews. They won in the end.

The despised family of Rothschild, once compelled by the haughty citizens to confine themselves to one quarter of the city, is now its boast. The Frankforter takes more pride to-day in the fact that the city was the home of the Rothschilds, than it does in the fact that it was for centuries the seat of government of the German Empire. The Jew in Europe, while yet under something of a ban, is not the despised creature he was. The world has learned to respect him.

There is not a calling in Europe that a Jew is not at the very head and front of. He has composed all the great operas, the sons and daughters of Judea are the great actors and singers of the world; in law and divinity, and learning of all kinds, they stand at the head, and in finance they are the world’s creditors. A convention of Jew bankers could be called together who could shake every throne in Europe.

Kings and nobles don’t pull the teeth of Jews any more to extract loans. On the contrary, they come into the presence of these great financiers with hat in hand and humble step. The Jew holds the forceps now, and it is the noble’s teeth that are pulled. How, in the absence of all law, hated, despised and contemned, and persecuted, they could amass wealth, is a mystery, but they did it.

When persecution in one State got too warm for them they always had enough wealth to get away to another, and they always found a prince who needed money badly enough to give them protection, for a time, at least, and these same princes were wont to become silent partners with the Jews in the work of eating up their own subjects with usury, which held until the Jews got the upper hand, when the prince always made a raid upon them, paying his debts to them in this way, and they flitted.

Finally they got some measure of rights, when they made themselves felt. The hatred of Jews continues in Germany and Russia, for the reason that their superior energy and acuteness has made them the masters of the trade of those countries. There is no business that they do not control. A great people are the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. They live where all others die, they wax rich where others starve. It is so in Europe, it is so in America, it is so everywhere. There is no village so small that it has not its Jew, precisely as in America. The Jew with his goods is the first man in a new town—he progresses a little faster than progress. He was in the front or in the rear of the armies going southward; he was at the western end of every rail laid on the Pacific Road; he is essentially the pioneer in money and trade. They are a wonderful people.

The Jew of the fifteenth century and the Jew of to-day are practically the same. They use different methods, but the underlying principle that moves them remains unchanged. We had two of them in the cars coming to Frankfort, an elderly Israelite with the regular nose, and his nephew, who was the exact picture of his uncle. The old man was giving the boy sage counsel:

“Vot is necessary for a peesnis man, Abram, is berseverance more ash anyting else. Berseverance is vot vins, every dime. Ven I livet in Shalesfille, shust back mit Vicksberg, (I vas in clodink), der vash Cohen and Lilienthal both in groceries. Cohen vas doin der besht peesness and it made Lilienthal mat. Lilienthal mate a special ding oof mackarel and Cohen unterselt him. Den Lilienthal put down sugar but Cohen unterselt him. Lilienthal put rice down mit almosht nottin, unt Cohen almosht gif it avay. Cohen het de peesnis, and no matter how much Lilienthal sanded hees sugar and vatered hees vishkey Cohen alvays beet him. Dot Cohen vas a goot peesnis man.

“But Lilienthal vash de most berseverin’ man ash ever vash, and he vash pound to beat Cohen anyhow, and so vun day he notist dot Cohen het a fery fine delivery mule. So Lilienthal he sait to Cohen:

“‘Shake, dit you efer dink dot oof dot mule oof yours hed dot wart off his hint leg he wood pring you more ash dwice vot he vood now?’

“‘Dot wart? It don’t look vell. But how ish dot wart to be got off? Der hint leg oof a helty mule isn’t der pesht blace to go foolin rount.’

“Lilienthal vas a most berseverin’ man. He sait:

“‘It’s der easiest ting vot efer vos. You come up behint dot mule mit a red hot iron and burn off der wart. De mule is vort a huntret tollars more ash he vas.’

“Cohen triet it der next tay, unt hish funeral vash der piggest vot dey efer hat in Shalesfille. Lilienthal attented it hisself in two carriages, an’ he vent right along and did all de peesness, and at a goot brofit, vor he hedn’t no gompetishun. Lilienthal vosh a berseverin’ man, Abram. Der ain’t notting in peesness like berseverance. Remember dot.”

In a historic point of view, very interesting is the RÖmer, or Council Hall, erected about the year 1406. It faces the RÖmerberg, and its three pointed gables give it a picturesque appearance. In the principal hall on the second floor are “Portraits of the Emperors,” beginning with Charlemagne (768-814),

and Conrad I. (911-918), and coming down to Ferdinand III. (1637-1658). It was in this room the new emperor dined with the electors and then showed himself to the people assembled in the market place in front. Adjoining this room is a smaller one, in which the electors used to meet to consult on the choice of an emperor. It is still preserved in the style of the olden days.

Of course Frankfort has fine churches and a cathedral, but there is no especial merit in them.

Near the monument erected on the Friedberger Thor by Frederick William II. to the memory of the Hessians who fell in 1792, during the attack on Frankfort, is a small circular building which contains one of the most beautiful as well as most celebrated works of art in Germany, if not in Europe.

A wealthy banker, named Bethman, purchased from the artist, Dannecker, of Stuttgart, his masterpiece, the exquisite “Ariadne on the Panther,” and erected this building for its exhibition. In one part of the room is a recess, separated from the room by a crimson curtain. The ceiling is of glass, across which is stretched some heavy crimson cloth stuff. This filters the light, soft and subdued upon the group, producing a most beautiful effect. The figure of Ariadne, nearly life-size, is half sitting, half reclining on the back of the panther, one elbow resting on the animal’s head. The position is one of grace itself, and the modeling is perfect. As the soft light is shed upon the pure white marble, one can almost believe that it is the figure of a living, breathing woman before him. The effect is greatly heightened by the arrangement of the pedestal which allows the statue to be slowly revolved, thus giving the peculiar light and shade effect to every part. It is truly a most marvelous piece of statuary, and is worthy the admiration and praise bestowed upon it by the most eminent critics.

During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Frankfort derived the most of her importance from the great fairs that were held there annually. Merchants came from all parts of the country, with their stuffs, and made the old city, for the time being, a great commercial center, a position its excellent location especially adapted it for. But later, these fairs lost their prestige, and finally died away altogether, though occasionally they have an industrial exposition. But they are nothing compared to the fairs of the olden time.

While we were in Frankfort an Industrial Exposition was in progress which, of course, we visited, and spent at least two hours very pleasantly, wandering around the different buildings and the beautiful grounds. The display was about equal to an ordinary State Fair in Western America. The most enjoyable portion of it all was the ride back to the depot, through the floral gardens, with their magnificent flowers and plants and shrubs, and along the broad Anlagen, with their handsome residences and well kept lawns.