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Warner, Charles Dudley, 1829-1900

"Saunterings"

, who also relieved Munich of beggars.
I have spoken of the number of soldiers in Munich. For six weeks the
Landwehr, or militia, has been in camp in various parts of Bavaria.
There was a grand review of them the other day on the Field of Mars,
by the king, and many of them have now gone home. They strike an
unmilitary man as a very efficient body of troops. So far as I could
see, they were armed with breech-loading rifles. There is a treaty
by which Bavaria agreed to assimilate her military organization to
that of Prussia. It is thus that Bismarck is continually getting
ready. But if the Landwehr is gone, there are yet remaining troops
enough of the line. Their chief use, so far as it concerns me, is to
make pageants in the streets, and to send their bands to play at noon
in the public squares. Every day, when the sun shines down upon the
mounted statue of Ludwig I., in front of the Odeon, a band plays in
an open Loggia, and there is always a crowd of idlers in the square
to hear it. Everybody has leisure for that sort of thing here in
Europe; and one can easily learn how to be idle and let the world
wag. They have found out here what is disbelieved in America,--that
the world will continue to turn over once in about twenty-four hours
(they are not accurate as to the time) without their aid.


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