I recall one snowy morning in Saxe-Coburg, looking from the window
of our little hotel upon the town square, that we saw crossing and
recrossing it a single file of women with semicircular, heavy,
wooden tanks fastened upon their backs. They were carrying in this
primitive fashion to a remote cooling room these tanks filled with
a hot brew incident to one stage of beer making. The women were
bent forward, not only under the weight which they were bearing,
but because the tanks were so high that it would have been
impossible for them to have lifted their heads. Their faces and
hands, reddened in the cold morning air, showed clearly the white
scars where they had previously been scalded by the hot stuff which
splashed if they stumbled ever so little on their way. Stung into
action by one of those sudden indignations against cruel conditions
which at times fill the young with unexpected energy, I found
myself across the square, in company with mine host, interviewing
the phlegmatic owner of the brewery who received us with
exasperating indifference, or rather received me, for the innkeeper
mysteriously slunk away as soon as the great magnate of the town
began to speak. I went back to a breakfast for which I had lost my
appetite, as I had for Gray's "Life of Prince Albert" and his
wonderful tutor, Baron Stockmar, which I had been reading late the
night before.
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