GIANT DRAUGHT

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 73, 23 September 1930, Page 16

GIANT DRAUGHT

FROM EMPEROR'S GOBLET

ANNUAL GERMAN FEAT

Whitsuntide was celebrated in an unusual way at Bothenburg, in Bavaria, the most oxquisito example of a medieval city still existing in Europe, says the "Daily Mail." . Tho burgomaster must publicly perform the prodigious feat of drinking no less than three and a half quarts of Moselle wine at a single draught.

This is because' just 300 years ago, when the Eoformation was dawning, Bothenburg proclaimed itself Protestant. It soon had to surrender to the Catholic army sent against it under General Tilly. His officers demanded tho total annihilation of the city, but the women and children clung to his horse's hoofs begging for mercy.

AVhilo the fate of the city hung in the balance Tilly was handed tho huge goblet, kept at the Kathaus expressly for visitors of the Emperor, filled with the city's choicest vintage. The day was hot and tho general parched. After a deep draught the Netherland good humour took possession of tho old soldier, who cut the deliberations of his stiifl: short and said he would spare the town if any one of the senators would drain the huge flagon all at once.

Burgomaster Nusch accepted tho apparently impossible challenge, made a mighty effort, and accomplished the task.

This feat, whose authenticity is vouched for by the records of the city, has been immortalized by a mechanical re-enactment of the event every day in tho tower of the old Eathaus-Trink-stube, or Drinking Hall. When tho town clock strikes midday, two little windows fly open. Tilly appears at one and Nusch at the other, and the Meistertrink, as it is called, is again performed in effigy, to a street crowd that never wearies of the spectacle.

The Burgomaster now in offic ■ is expected to prove on tho 300tlr anniversary of the original event that the feat is still not beyond German powers.