CHAPTER IV.

THE GERMANS AND AUSTRIANS.

Cottages From the Black Forest— The Town Hall of Hesse— Westphalia and the Banks of the Rhine-
Glimpses of Berlin and Bavaria— A Reproduction of One of the Streets of Old Vienna— Forty-
Eight Stores— The Emperor's Own Band— The Cost of the Village Nearly gl3o,000— It Opened
With a Banquet.

i

O display in the whole great exhibition at Jackson Park
combines in itself so much calculated to awaken Amer-
ican curiosity and German interest as the German village
on the Midway plaisance. Cottages from the Black
forest and Westphalia cluster round a typical town hall
of Hesse, and homes from Bavaria and the Rhine add
a quaint, old world flavor to the grouping. Dominating
all a mediaeval keep of the sixteenth century casts its
broad, protecting shadow across the picture which has
been worked out into a veritable cameo of the Fatherland.
Every architectural detail has been lovingly reproduced with
such care and truth that one passes out of the Chicago street
into Deutschland at a step. Nor is the setting all. The German village has its-
origin In the patriotism and public spirit of two of the great banks of Berlin, the
Deutsche bank and the National Bank fuer Deutschland, and in the fertile brain and
energetic conduct of Dr.Ulrich Jahn of Berlin. In its present shape the display is
the result of the best thought of such men as Prof. Virchow, rector of the Univer-
sity of Berlin; Baurath Wallot, the famous architect; Prof. Eugene Bracht and Prof,
von Heyden; A. Voss, the ethnographer, and Meyer Cohn; and certainlythe village
is a credit in every way to its designers. The ethnographic museum is especially
good, and the costumes and armor make the finest collection of the sort ever gath-
ered together for exhibition in America.

Besides the museum and the cottages the village offers many other attrac-
tions, not the least of which is the magnificent music of two uniformed bands organ-
ized by Herman Wolff of the Philharmonic at Berlin and by Rossberg, who is the
final authority on all musical matter? ;M the German army. These bands play in
two pavilions in a beautiful summer ge.rden which has in it tables and chairs enough
to accommodate several thousand guests. In connection with this part of the dis-
play is the restaurant, which carries out strictly Berlin ideas and Berlin methods,
and to make the resemblance to the old country lustgarten all the more striking the
beer of Bavaria, the Wuczburg Hofbrau, and the wines of the palatinate are not
altogether inaccessible.

576 HISTORY OF THE WORLD'S FAIR.

The German village in all of its departments is under the management of C.
B. Schmidt, and to this fact its practical success will be largely due. Mr. Schmidt
as immigration commissioner of the Santa Fe railway has probably more friends on
both sides of the Atlantic than any other gentleman in Chicago, while his tact,
courtesy, and proved executive ability combine to make the display one of the most
popular as well as one of the most valuable and instructive and pleasant at the
World's Fair. One feels that he is in Germany every time he visits the German
village.

A center of attraction for all passers-by on the Midway Plaisance is the beauti-
ful Vienna cafe, or Old Vienna, with its 40 shops.which reproduces not alone the fine
architecture but the delightful cookery of the imperial city of Austria. And it is
the cookery which appeals most strongly to the wayfarer. Charles Earnest, the
manager of the cafe, who came from Delmonico's of New York to take charge of
this enterprise, is known to gourmets the world over as a past master of the art of
dining. Equipped with unlimited means and gifted with a genius for catering, Mr.
Earnest brings a cosmopolitan experience to a cosmoplitan task. He has managed
restaurants in Paris and Vienna, as well as in Rome and London, and he can
sympathize in half a dozen languages with the artistic appetite that has been edu-
cated on the Boulevard des Italiens and given its doctor's degree on the Ring
strasse.

Messrs. Koenig and Griesser, the proprietors of the cafe, deserve the con-
gratulations of Chicago for the admirable manner in which they have carried out
every detail of their excellent idea. Mr. Koenig came to America with the
prestige of having successfully conducted one of the largest cafes in Vienna. The
cafe is one of the most attractive parts of the whole World's Fair and neither
money nor brains has been spared in completing it. A magnificent orchestra under
the direction of Prof. Julius Schiller is a component part of the attractions provided,
and the quick and experienced service, the elegant cookery, and yet thoroughly
Viennese, economical scale of prices, and the whole foreign, old world flavor of the
cafe bring to it the success it so well deserves.

There have been as many as 4,000 people at one time in Old Vienna. The
village occupies the largest space in the Plaisance. Its charm lies in its antiquity.
The reproductions are of Garben and Bogner streets, Vienna. These are the old-
est and best-preserved streets of the Austrian capital. They were built 200 years
ago under the protection of the Archduke Ludwig Victor and the Imperial and
Royal Lander Bank of Vienna. The buildings, which form a large court, are ex-
act reproductions of the old streets. Even the cracks in the ancient walls are fac-
simile.

The design creates the impression of a part of an ancient city built up with
great irregularity, and presents old, gable-end houses with frescoes and shields,
and these open up a prospective to small, narrow streets. The council house, with
outside staircase and covered way, stretches along the entire distance of the square,
in the middle of which stands an ancient well. The shops are built after the fashion
of former times, and there only special Viennese products are sold.

HISTORY OF THE WORLD'S FAIR.

577

It is not necessary to draw on the imagination in the Vienna village to be-
come imbued with a foreign influence. There is nothing modern to meet the eye
except the Columbian Guards. The first floors of all the buildings are fitted up as
shops. Viennese women are on guard in nearly all of them, and the bank, under
whose assistance the street was built, has a branch in the village, and the office
is fitted up in the same style as the original institution, founded 300 years ago.

In the center of the court is the bandstand, where the emperor's own or-
chestra gives daily concerts. In the garden the tables are ancient and the barmaids
are dressed in the black and yellow of Austria. All were brought over from
Vienna. The village cost $125,000. Early in June the managers gave a banquet
to the Columbian officials and others. The guests were given many an Austrian
toast, which in plain English was "Drink and be merry."

THE ABOVE IS A VIEW OF PHELPS, DODGE & PALMER COMPANY'S EXHIBIT AT THE WORLD'S FAIR.

HISTORY OF THE WORLD'S FAIR. 579