England, besides being the greatest monarch on
the globe, as the greatest of all smokers — not
excepting the Grand Turk, or the Emperor of
Austria, the greatest tobacconist of Europe.

BITS OF LIFE IN MUNICH.

DECEMBER. —You shall now know the great
gossip of Munich — but I don't believe a word
of it; neither will you, I suppose! There is a
rumour afloat that at night, in lonely places,
there appears a fearful man, who draws out
a terrible weapon, a poisoned knife, or knives,
concealed in a ring, and wounds you in the
face!  Report says that he has wounded
several victims already; that one, in dying,
declared that the man had vowed to destroy
ninety!  And about a fortnight ago scarcely
a day passed but you heard of a fresh
victim.

Some people said they had seen the crowd;
others that they heard the particulars from
the aunt, or cousin, or neighbour of the child,
or person wounded. You can scarcely imagine
the panic that people have been in about this
" Gesichte-schneider-man" with the " iron-
clasp! " They say —but I cannot at all vouch
for the truth of it— that a man guilty of the
same capital crime was beheaded last year at
Augsburg; others say seven years ago; I hear,
in fact, such contradictory and wild reports,
that I believe very little. Of this, however,
you may be sure, that I am very careful to go
along the most frequented streets, and that too
in broad daylight, for I will not run the risk of
being frightened even by my own imagination.

However the people believe it every word,
and it is, really, very German— very much
like some of those wild crimes recorded in
the "Causes Célèbres" Then, too, the secrecy
that there is about it, helps to terrify people.
In England the affair would soon be brought
to light, and the wretch —if such a monster
does exist —be punished.

There is, however, something terrific in
facts which belong to every-day life here, as
for instance, the training of a dog. I did
not, myself, witness this affair; I only heard
it described; but it strikes me also as very
German. One afternoon J. told me that she
heard a tremendous noise, the shouts and
screams of a man, and the terrific howling
and yelling of a dog. Out darted the
gentleman from the studio, and out rushed J.,
and there, in the large adjoining field, through
the mud —for there had been a heavy fall of
snow —a man raced along, pursued by an
enormous dog, the fiercest brute imaginable;
it sprung upon him, it tore him, it shook him
by the hair of his head, it dragged him along
the ground, the man screaming and the dog
howling! Then they were up again, and
careering round and round the field, man and
dog, like wild beasts. J. was horrified beyond
words, and to J.'s indescribable indignation
the gentleman looked quietly on and smiled.
What could it mean? To her it seemed a
fearful murder. But no! it was only the
training of a watch-dog; and a very frightful
business it must have been, although very
grand to witness, the gentleman declared.
The man was all bound up, so that the dog
could not possibly injure him materially; but
his head and face, with their frightful bandages,
suggested no other idea than that of wounds,
which made him look all the more dreadful.
These fierce dogs, thus trained, are necessary
as a security against robbers; many people
keep them; there are two at the studio, but
I have noticed nothing very ferocious about
them. Here this mode of training dogs is not
at all unusual, although the trade I should
think not particularly agreeable.

Hearing of the necessity for such terrible
dogs, you would imagine, especially after my
account of the " face-cutting-man with the
iron-clasp," that Munich was a dreadful
place, and that its inhabitants are beset by
dangers dire. But that is anything but the
truth, speaking from our experience. For
my part, I think that all these suggestions of
horror only belong to the approach of long
winter evenings, and are as much a sign of
the season as the number of strange winter
garments that you meet in the streets. I
wish you could have seen the pair of long,
grotesque, crimson leather boots which we
met to-day! —this style of boots, though
generally made of untanned leather, is much
affected by the students.  I wish, too, you could
have seen the tall, shadowy figure of a student,
arrayed in a long grey cloak, with a painted
hood standing up in wizard or "Mother-Red-
Cap" style, on his head! It was a misty
afternoon, just beginning to grow dark, as he
came upon us at the abrupt turning of a
street; we felt that he was a shadow— a
creature of the mist. And it was all the
more fantastic as we were just passing, or
rather had just passed, the enchanted-looking
red, gothic palace of King Ludwig, which in
the mist, and with lights gleaming from its
windows, seemed to glow like a burning
palace of enchantment; the red colour through
the mist making the whole building appear
to be on fire —in a dull glow.

These hooded cloaks are a great rage here
among the young men and lads; youths of
twelve and fifteen have gay ones; outside
grey or drab, with linings of crimson or blue
—they are just like women's cloaks;— the
students generally have darker colours, but
their hoods generally gaily lined. If a man
does not wear a hooded cloak, he wears one
with a large cape, which he flings gracefully
over his shoulders, producing very effective
drapery; or if he does not sport an ample
cloak, or a cloak of any kind, he will wear a
great loose coat, with the sleeves uselessly
dangling down at his sides or floating foolishly
behind him. You never, by any chance,
happen in Munich to see a man wearing a
great coat, as any thing but a cloak.

There is nothing very peculiar about the