Digitised Manuscripts and Books

scenery, no other forest could surpass. There, on Sundays, Frankforters of all classes and all ages went on picnics to the Restaurants, partaking of indifferent coffee and chocolate and eating still more indifferent cakes – which, however, I thought delicious. Longer excursions were frequently made to the villages at the foot of the Taunus – which were magnified in my eyes into a chain of gigantic mountains – to Soden particularly, a pretty little watering-place, where the best gruyere, black bread and cider, were to be had.

Since the unification of the German Empire, the town gates of Frankfort have been taken down, the market gardens have been covered by its expanding suburbs, and the smoke from the tall chimneys of many factories hangs over the country far away. Its population has doubled, and its wealth has increased in proportion, for its position is unrivalled as it is now the centre of a vast network of railways. But what it has gained in size it has lost in picturesqueness, and in another decade, few if any of the older portions of the town will be left. The once narrow and tortuous streets are rapidly disappearing, and the jerry-builder erects colossal square mansions, devoid of taste, - being either overladen with ornament or else barrack-like in their plainness – on the site of the antique, high-gabled houses which delighted the eye with their curiously shaped bay windows, wrought iron balconies, and many overhanging storeys. The Palace of the Elector of Hesse in the Zeil – the principal thoroughfare – has been converted into shops, while the Hotel de Russie – once too a palace – and the old Post Office, have had to make way for the buildings of to-day. The Römer Platz, where stands the Cathedral, still stands untouched, and the tourist can form some slight conception of the Frankfort I have known from its quaintly fashioned houses which are all windows; being thus provided, however, not for the sake of light and air, but to enable the visitors on the occasions of the coronations, to enjoy the best possible view of the festivities and pageants which then took place.

The first street in Frankfort to be doomed by the present mania for sanitation and improvement, was the old 'Jew's Street'; which, in former times was closed at night with heavy chains, no Jew being permitted to leave it after dark. The house of my ancestors, alone, has been respected, but as it stood in the way when the street was being pulled down to be widened, it was carefully taken to pieces to be re-erected farther back. It now looks strangely incongruous beside its new and gaudy neighbours, and an erroneous impression is conveyed of its former appearance and proportions. Though outwardly one house, it is really divided into two, only one-half having been inhabited by my ancestors. My Great-Grandmother died in it, a centenarian, in 1849, and though she long survived her husband, and her sons and daughters were living amid luxurious surroundings, she abided all her life in the small, dingy dwelling in fulfilment of a promise to her husband that she would never leave the home of their youth. I can still see her, resting on a couch in her dark little sitting-room, folded in a thick white shawl, her deeply-furrowed face enclosed in a full and heavily-ribboned white cap, and a genial smile beaming from her bright eyes as she bade me partake of some favourite small aniseed cakes.