CHAPTER XX.

COMIC ART IN GERMANY.

Upon the news-stands in St. Louis, Chicago, Cincinnati, Philadelphia, Milwaukee, New York, and other cities, we find the comic periodicals of Germany, particularly the _Fliegende Blätter_ of Berlin, and the _Beilage der Fliegenden Blätter_ of Munchen, papers resembling _Punch_ in form and design. The American reader who turns over their leaves can not but remark the mildness of the German jokes. Compared with the tremendous and sometimes ghastly efforts of the dreadful Funny Man of the American press, the jests of the Germans are as lager-beer to the goading "cocktail" and the maddening "smash!" But, then, they are delightfully innocent. Coming from the French comic albums and papers to those of the Germans, is like emerging, after sunrise, from a masquerade ball, all gas, rouge, heat, and frenzy, into a field full of children playing till the bell rings for school. Nevertheless, the impression remains that an extremely mild joke suffices to amuse the German reader of comic periodicals.

The pictured jests, as in _Punch_, are the attractive feature. Observe the infantile simplicity of a few of these, taken almost at random from recent volumes of the papers just mentioned:

Two young girls, about twelve, are sitting upon a bench in a public garden. Two dandies walk past, who are dressed alike, and resemble one another. "Tell me, Fanny," says one of the girls, "are not those two gentlemen brothers?" This is the reply: "One of them is, I know for certain; but I am not quite sure about the other."

A strapping woman, sooty, wearing a man's hat, and carrying a ladder and brushes, is striding along the street. The explanation vouchsafed is the following: "The very eminent magistrate has determined to permit the widow of the meritorious chimney-sweep, Spazzicammino, to continue the business."

A silly-looking gentleman is seen conversing with a lady upon whom he has called, while a number of cats are playing about the room. "Why have you so many cats?" he asks. The lady replies: "Well, you see, my cook kept giving warning because I locked up the milk and meat, and so I got the cats as a pretext."

Two ladies are conversing. The elder says: "Why do you quarrel with your husband so often?" The younger replies: "Oh, you know the making-up is extremely entertaining, and getting good again is so lovely!"

A scene in a cheap book-store. A young lady says to the clerk: "I want a Lovers' Letter-writer--a cheap one." "Here, miss?" "How much is it?" "Eighteen kreutzers." "That is too dear for me." "Oh, but I beg your pardon, miss, if you take the Letter-writer, you get Schiller's works thrown in; and if a young lady buys at this shop a tract upon potatoes, she gets the whole of Goethe into the bargain."

The steps of a church are exhibited, with a clergyman assisting an old woman down to the sidewalk. A long explanation is given, as follows: "Parson Friedel, a thoroughly good fellow, though not a particularly good preacher, goes on Sunday morning to church to edify his flock. On his arrival he sees an old dame trying in vain to get up the icy steps. 'Oh, sir,' she says, not recognizing the holy man, 'pray help me up.' He does so, and when they have reached the top she thanks him, and adds, 'Oblige me also, dear sir, by telling me who preaches to-day?' 'Parson Friedel,' he courteously replies. 'Oh, sir, then help me down again.' The parson, smiling, rejoins: 'Quite right; I wouldn't go in myself if I were not obliged to.'"

A very tall man is bending over to light his cigar at an exceedingly short man's cigar. "What!" says the short man, "you wonder that your light goes out so often? That is owing to the rarity of the atmosphere in the elevated regions in which your cigar moves."

A stable scene, in which figure a horse, an officer, and a horse-dealer. The officer says: "The horse I bought of you yesterday has a fault; he is lame in the off fore-leg." The dealer replies: "Ah! and do you call that a fault? I call it a misfortune."

A clergyman's study. Enter a very ill-favored pair, to whom the clergyman says: "So you wish to be married, do you? Well, have you maturely reflected upon it?" The man replies: "Yes, we have asked beforehand about how much it will cost."

A compartment of a railway carriage, in which are two passengers, one of whom has two little pigs under the seat, and the other a small curly lap-dog in his lap. _Conductor_ (standing outside). "Have you a dog's ticket?" "No." "Then get one." "But my dog troubles no one." "That makes no difference." "But this countryman here has two pigs in the carriage." "No matter for that; we have a rule about dogs, but none for pigs."

A boat on a Swiss lake with a party about to lunch. A lady, in great alarm, says to the boatman: "Stop, for Heaven's sake, stop! You told the people, when we got in, that your boat would sink if it were heavier by half an ounce. But if these men eat all that, we shall go to the bottom for a certainty."

A restaurant scene. A customer, handing back to a waiter a plate of meat, says: "Waiter, this meat is so tough I can't chew it." _Waiter._ "Excuse me, I will bring you a sharp knife immediately."

An aged clergyman parting with a young soldier about to join the army, says: "Augustus, you now enter upon a military career. Take care of your health, and mind you lead a good life." _Augustus._ "Same to you, pastor."

A boy up a tree, and a gentleman standing under it. "I'll teach you to steal my plums, you scoundrel! I'll tell your father." "What do I care? My father steals himself." This picture is headed, "Good Fruit."

A family seated at dinner. _Mother._ "But, Elsie, naughty girl! what horrid manners you have! You eat only the cream, and leave the dumplings." _Elsie._ "Why, papa can eat them."

A man and woman of Jewish cast of countenance are seen at a pawnbroker's sale. _Woman._ "Well, what will you buy for mother's birthday?" _Man._ "A handsome dress, I think." _Woman._ "How unpractical you are! She can only live three or four years at most; and even in that short time a dress will be in rags. Let us buy for the dear old soul a pair of silver candlesticks. Then when she dies we shall have them back again."

Under the heading of "Cheap Illumination," we are presented with a picture of an Esquimau with a lighted wick held in his mouth, and the following explanation: "The Esquimaux, as is well known, live on the fat of the reindeer, the seal, and the whale. This suggested to the arctic traveler, Warnie, the idea of drawing a wick through the body of one of the natives, and in this way obtaining a brilliant train-oil lamp for the long winter nights."

Two noble ladies chatting over their tea: "Only think, my dear, we are obliged to discharge our man." "Why?" "Oh, he begins to be too familiar. What do you think? I saw him cleaning the boots, and I discovered, to my horror, that he had my husband's boots, my son's, and _his own_, all mixed together!"

A lady hurrying home from an approaching shower, dragging her little boy with her. _Boy._ "But, mother, why should we be so afraid of the thunder storm? Those hay-makers yonder don't care." _Mother._ "Child, they are poor people, who don't attract the lightning as we do, who always have gold and ready cash about us."

A scene in a police court, the magistrate questioning a witness: "You are a carpenter, are you not?" "I am." "You were at work in the vicinity of the place where the scuffle occurred?" "I was." "How far from the two combatants were you standing?" "Thirty-six feet and a half, Rhenish measure." "How can you speak so exactly?" "Because I measured it. I thought that most likely some fool would be asking about that at the trial."

These may suffice as examples of the average comic force of the German joke. A very few of the above--perhaps four or five in all--might have been accepted by the editors of _Punch_, with the requisite changes of scene and dialect. We must also bear in mind that the dialect counts for much in a comic scene, as we can easily perceive by changing a Yorkshire bumpkin's language in a comedy into London English. Half of the laugh-compelling power of some of the specimens given may lie in peculiarities of dialect and grammar of which no one but a native of the country can feel the force. A few of the more vivid and telling examples are given in the accompanying illustrations.

The glimpses of German life which the comic artists afford remind us that the children of men are of one family, the several branches of which do not differ from one another so much as we are apt to suppose. German fathers, too, as we see in these pictures, stand amazed at the quantity of property their daughters can carry about with them in the form of wearing apparel. A domestic scene exhibits a young lady putting the last fond touches to her toilet, while a clerk presents a long bill to the father of the family, who throws his hands aloft, and exclaims, "Oh, blessed God! Thou who clothest the lilies of the field, provide also for my daughter, at least during the Carnival!"

Germany, not less than England and America, laughs at "the modern mother," who dawdles over Goethe, and is "literary," and wears eyeglasses, while delegating to bottles and goats her peculiar duties. An extravagant burlesque of this form of self-indulgence presents to view a baby lying on its back upon a centre-table, its head upon a pillow, taking nourishment _direct_ from a goat standing over it; the mother sitting near in a luxurious chair, reading. Enter the family doctor, who cries, aghast, "Why, what's this, baroness? I did not mean it _in that way_! A she-goat is not a wet-nurse." To which the baroness languidly replies, looking from her book, "Why not?"

And here is the German version of _Punch's_ widely disseminated joke upon marriage: "If you are going to be married, my son, I will give you some good advice." "And what is it?" "Better not."

The Woman's Rights agitation gave rise to burlesques precisely similar in inane extravagance to those which appeared in England, America, and France. We have the "Students of the Future," a series representing buxom lasses in dashing bloomers, smoking, dissecting, fighting duels, and hunting. The young lady who has on her dissecting-table a bearded "subject" is leaning against it nonchalantly, drinking a pot of beer, and another young lady is using the pointed heel of her fashionable boot as a tobacco-stopper. Here, too, is the husband who comes home late, and whose wife _will_ sit up for him.

The great servant-girl question is also up for discussion in Germany, after occupying womankind for three thousand years. Here is a group of servants talking together. "Yesterday I gave warning," says one. "Why?" asks another; "the wages are high, the food is good, and you have every Sunday out." The reply is: "Well, you must know, my Fritz don't like it. Mistress buys her wine at the wine-merchant's, where I get the bottles all sealed. Don't you see?"

In the same spirit, as every reader knows, the drawing-room judges the kitchen in other lands besides Germany, and is supported in its judgment by satiric artists who evolve preposterously impossible servants from the shallows of their own ignorance.

Rarely, indeed, does a German caricaturist presume to meddle with politics, and still more rarely does he do it with impunity. The Germans, with all their excellences, seem wanting in the spirit that has given us our turbulent, ill-organized freedom. Perhaps their beer has offered too ready and cheap a resource against the chafing resentments that tyranny excites; for a narcotized brain is indolently submissive to whatever is very difficult of remedy. Coffee and tobacco keep the Turk a slave. The wisest act of Louis Napoleon's usurpation was his giving a daily ration of tobacco to every soldier. Woe to despots when men cease to dull and pollute their brains with tobacco and alcohol! There will then be a speedy end put to the system that takes five millions of the _élite_ of Europe from industry, and consigns them to the business of suppression and massacre. Whatever may be the cause, Germany has scarcely yet begun her apprenticeship to freedom; and, consequently, her public men lose the inestimable advantage of seeing their measures as the public sees them. Let us hope that the German people may be able to appropriate part of our experience, and so work their way to rational and orderly freedom without passing through the stage of ignorant suffrage and thief-politicians. Meanwhile there is no political caricature in Germany.

As a set-off to this defect, I may mention again the absence from the German comic periodicals of the class of subjects which, at present, seems to be the sole inspiration of French art and French humor. It is evident that the Germans do not regard illicit love as the chief end of man. The reason of the superior decency of German satire is, probably, that German methods of education awaken the intelligence and store the mind with the food of thought. Indecency is the natural resource of a thoughtless mind, because the physical facts of our existence constitute a very large proportion of all the knowledge it possesses. Suppose those facts and the ideas growing directly out of them to be one hundred in number. The whole number of facts and ideas in an ignorant mind may not exceed two hundred; while in the intellect of a Goethe or a Lessing there may live and revolve twenty thousand. Convent education is probably the cause of French indecency, simply from its leaving the mind dull and the imagination active. Many Frenchmen must think _bodily_, or not think at all. This conjecture I hazard because I have observed in Protestant schools, professedly and distinctively religious, the same morbid tendency in the pupils that we notice in French art and drama. The French are right in not trusting their convent-bred girls out of sight. The convent-bred boys, who can not be so closely watched, show the untrustworthiness of moral principle which is not fortified by intelligent conviction. The Germans, from their better mental culture and greater variety of topics, are not reduced to the necessity of amusing themselves by "bodily wit."