Vol. XXVII, No. 2 



WASHINGTON 



February, 1915 



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MATIONAL 

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 'MBAM 





THE TOWN OF MANY GABLES 



By Florence Craig Albrecht 



Illustrations from Photographs by Bmil Poole Albrecht 



Stolz im Aussern, rein im Innern 

 Daran soil dies Haus erinnern. 

 Gott mag immerdar hier schalten 

 Denn kann hier nur vSegen walten. 



THE memory of its winding streets, 

 its ancient houses, gabled, arcaded, 

 mottoed, had hngered with us since 

 opportunity, one long-ago winter day, 

 gave us two or three unexpected hours 

 in the quiet city. We had thought it 

 charming, even in its snow-mantle ; un- 

 pretentious yet unmistakably prosperous ; 

 gravely contented and dignified; self-ab- 

 sorbed, yet not self-conscious ; and Ave 

 had always meant to see it again, and 

 more thoroughly. AVhen, then, an ankle 

 painfully twisted upon a steep Malines 

 stairway made our projected walking 

 tour in the Harz Mountains very dubious, 

 Miinster appealed at once as a convenient 

 and alluring half-way house in which to 

 rest. 



It is an eight-hour railway journey 

 from Malines to Miinster, with two cus- 

 toms-houses to pass en route. It must be 

 stated promptly that neither Dutch nor 

 German inspectors made any trouble for 

 us, and the scenes in the examining rooms 

 were rather entertaining than tiresome ; 

 but after one "passes customs" four or 

 five times within a week, the funniest bi- 

 lingual discussions lose flavor. The scen- 

 ery through which one rides is entertain- 

 ing, but not striking. Much of it is rich 

 farm land, and farm land in June is lovely. 



Proud without and pure within, 

 May this house in memory seem. 

 May God here forever rule ; 

 Then can only blessing reign. 



wherever one may be ; and we had seen 

 this particular stretch of the Netherlands 

 many times before. There was no nov- 

 elty, which justifies our being very tired 

 when we drove through Miinster in the 

 dusk one Saturday evening. 



me;rry-making in munster 



June dusk in northern Germany, where 

 the space between twilight and dawn is 

 in summer so brief, means bedtime for 

 early risers, and we were thinking drow- 

 sily of a dark, quiet room when our car- 

 riage turned into the Prinzipal Markt 

 and stopped in a blaze of light. ^Miinster 

 was celebrating Jahrmarkt (annual mar- 

 ket or fair) — the German version of the 

 Dutch Kermis — and although the trinket 

 booths and "shows" were clustered in 

 the Dom Platz, the crowd of merry- 

 makers, furnished with noise-producing 

 implements, overflowed into all the ad- 

 jacent streets. 



We had no reason to be ruffled. We 

 had chosen that hotel for its situation 

 upon the Prinzipal ^Markt, so that, seated 

 comfortably at our windows, we could 

 lazil}^ watch the ebb and flow of the 

 town's life here at its heart. If the town 

 chose to be especially lively during our 

 stay, we should have been all the more 



