A Revel With German Students,

Te Aroha News, Volume III, Issue 142, 20 February 1886, Page 5

A Revel With German Students,

Tiie singing of tho " Landesvater " was "called" by six presiding oilicerc', themselves students, seated at the ends of tho threo tables, gaudily attired and decorated with ribbons and gew-gaws, all of which meant something, I suppose, and each of the six wielding a long, straight, heavy sword. Thrice, and in unison, thoy smote tho table with their swords flatwise ; they then took seats at a table near the side wall, just long enough for the six to eit on one side of it, their backs to the wall, so that they looked across the three long tables. Meantime every person in the room--guests, waiters, doorkeepers, and musicians — were provided with studonts' caps, of the plain sort of courso, perhaps as a sign of universal brotherhood. Strains of melting tenderness now floated out from the horns, to bo joined by the other instruments, and so swelling into a billow of glorious sound until at one sudden bang it stopped — doad, as if it had been chopped off at a blow. Then low tricklinga of melody were heard again from the reeds, with the thrumming of muted violins, broken in upon by the wailing of tho horns and tubes, and thrilled with the jubilant tones of the hautboys^trumpet, and drums, the music thus getting thicker and thicker, so to speak, as before until ifc culminated in another crash and dead silence. But out of this silence arose the voices of the six presidents, who had been standing erect for a minute, having laid their caps and swords upon the table, in readiness to lead off with the Landesvafcer. The orchestra joined them at the end of a bar or two, and at the close of the stanza the students took it up in chorus. The in fcer'ude, by tho orchestra, was almost a cooa position by itself. Such was the routine of the Landesvater ; the six presidents sang each stanza, then the students— about 140 in number — repeated it in the most powerful and sonorous manner 1 have ever heard, exceeding the ponderous chori?&-singing required in Beethoven's " Fidelio" when it is performed at the Court Theatre at Dresden or at Berlin. At the end of the fifth verse the pre?idcnt3 put on their caps again, but remained standing. When the sixth verse was reached, as itself direct?, they took up thoir glasses of beer in their right hands and the swords in their loft, and they drank te the fatherland and to the university. The students chorused it ? rising and touching tho glasses to their lips. Singing the seventh stanza tho six officers took off their caps and ran their swords through them, then marched back to their seats at the end of the long tables, each bearing aloft his sword, hi& cap still hanging upon it at its hilt, and carrying in the other hand his big mug or glass of beer. This ended their distinctive part in the ceremonies. Then tho last two versos wore sung by all the students and the officers together, and during the singing of them the cap of every person in the room was tossed along to one or the other end of the long tables until all the caps were impaled upon the six long swords ! So they finished the singing of tho Landesvater. After a breathing spell of a minute or two, they began a very different song — a sort of low smooth chant — which they intoned in a nonchalant and graceful way, and kept it up until the hats and all had been removed from the swords and replaced, each on the head it had corno from. All that was done thereafter vaa of an impromptu or desultory natuie. There were songs, some one leading by invitation, or several starting one spontaneously as it seemed. There were short, wifcty speeches ; there were toasts and clever responses, and the unavoidablo Yorick who sets tho tablo in a roar. There were spells of incidental conversation that sometimes grew to a general jabber, which tho chief President would break up by calling upon some one for a ?ong or a poem, .flfter two hours of this, mingled with beer and its accompaniments, several of tho students and all the Guests took their leave at an hour past midnight, at which time no one in the room had given an indication that alcohol was at work in his nodcllo. — Alpha Child's Letter to "Boston Tianscript."