freighted with the men's wages, and which | sault. Hand-car accidents are not always had been long overdue.

In the midst of our confusion appeared the pompous paymaster, resplendent in snow-white shirt, the engine-driver, lantern in hand, following closely after. Joe responding manfully to their remonstrances, in a strange new jargon which was neither Dutch nor English, but born evidently of the excitement of the moment, poured forth in torrents his explanations, which, judging from his tone and gesture, were all of the exculpatory order, and which did not throw much light on the affair.

This scene being ended, and the train having vanished into darkness, we disconsolately gathered together the fragments of our shattered car and piled them in a heap at the side of the track. Then, sadly shouldering our shovels, we marched home, a crestfallen band, poor Joe, on whom was thrown the brunt of the catastrophe, and who, moreover, had to bear the incessant nagging of the old IrishCanadian, whose shoulder still smarted from his recent hurt, at the head of it. Our fellow-gang, to whom the news had travelled, were waiting to greet us with derisive jeers, accusing us of having at tempted to wreck the pay-car that we might enrich ourselves with the booty. It was not until the following morning that the gravel-train, after which we had gone such a disastrous journey, arrived.

of this light nature. On a section not far from ours, a man fell off on the track in front of the car, which went over him, seriously injuring his back.

There are often heavy rainfalls in the summer, during which no work is thought of. In my time it once rained three consecutive days, we occupying ourselves meanwhile with card-playing, reading, or doing nothing, as suited us best-the pay going on as regular as clockwork. More over, if a man wanted a day off for any reasonable purpose, he could get it for the asking. Not a cent, either, would be deducted from his wages if he was laid up through sickness for a time. Amongst a party of men who had tramped from Montana and were taken on the section was a Swede, who almost immediately com plained of rheumatism, and fully a month did he spend within the precincts of the house, on the flat of his back for the most part, losing never a day's pay, and carefully tended the while. His health improving, he was afterwards employed in light housework.

Besides the regular pay, we made overtime when there was any special work to be done, as the unloading of gravel-trains, etc. Occasionally also we worked on Sundays, greatly against the principles of our old Irish-Canadian, who asserted that money thus made never did one any good. Our new hand-car-for of course the old But his scruples on this head, I suspect, one had to be replaced nearly came to fell in very conveniently with his constitugrief likewise shortly afterwards. We were tional love of repose. One evening toworking away leisurely one breezy morn wards the end of summer, on our way ing, never thinking of our car, which we home we extinguished a prairie fire, beat, had left close by on the rails, when one of ing the flames out with our all-serviceable our men, chancing to look up, noticed that shovels; and for this exploit, which occushe had given us the slip. The wind had pied us scarcely over an hour, the grass set her a-going, and the line sloping at that being low at this part and the wind modpart, there she was, about a mile off, plac-erate, we were booked for half a day's idly continuing her course, and -alack overtime. for the "cussedness of things in general" For some days afterwards it fell to our - a train was rushing up to meet her. regular work, when the wind suited, to Making after her with all speed we over- burn the grass to within a distance of took the truant just in time to lift her off about sixty feet on either side of the track, the track before the train went past. to guard against fires being kindled by These were not the only tricks our hand-sparks from passing engines. Joe would car played on us. Once, as we were going rapidly over a switch, one of her wheels came loose, and she toppled sideways, sending our gallant chief flying-alighting on all fours. Another time, when we were returning home laden with logs which we had picked up for firewood, one of them fell off on the rail, and the car, bumping over it, gave a violent jerk, forcing me, without an instant's preparation, to the performance of a complete somer

march ahead, trailing a bundle of lighted rags which he had saturated in oil and fastened to a wire. With this he fired the grass, his trusty gang leisurely following him in single file, armed each with an old sack with which to smite out the flames when their appointed limit was reached.

These precautions having been neglected on the section west of the house, a fire broke out in that direction, and, speeded by the wind, made straight for

section work as well as my own additional
labors of cooking, baking bread, and other
incidental items were over, to be asked to
assist in the furtherance of some scheme
which to me seemed wholly useless.
This was in the fall. Such close quar-

our abode. We were working at some distance off, the other gang being miles away on their section. It was a race between us and the fire, and we were not in time to burn all round the house. In this extremity we had to rely almost solely on the buckets of water with which the good-ters during the hot season, especially at wife supplied us from a barrel at hand, handing them to us quick as lightning, with never a word, and not for one moment losing her presence of mind. We owed it, I believe, to her that the house was saved. As it was, two fine haystacks close by, worth some sixty dollars each, were destroyed. And if it had not been for the forethought of one of the young Prussians in driving the two little squealing pigs into a place of shelter, our Boarding-boss would have sustained still further loss.

night, with the windows shut against the mosquitoes, would have been unbearable. In the section-house, if by chance a window were left open, they would swarm in by myriads, rendering sleep utterly impos sible. On one such occasion I and some others sought refuge outside, where we made a dense smoke by burning a pile of dry plants, the only way to keep our tormentors off. It was amusing to watch the old cow making for the fire, into the smoke of which she eagerly thrust her head, as grateful as we were for the relief it afforded.

A very intelligent animal was this cow, and an object of just pride to the boarding-boss. However far off on the prairie she may have strayed, appearing but as a speck in the distance, her master had only to make himself visible, and call out in rousing accents "Cow-a! Cow-a!" and she would come bounding clumsily towards him to be milked, whisking her tail in the exuberance of her affection. There came a time, however, when she no longer responded to his appeal, a number of other cows which he had introduced upon the scene having exercised a demoralizing effect upon her. It was sad to see him stand shouting, with all the strength of his lungs, the old familiar cry - she turned a deaf ear to it, and one or other of us would have to act for the nonce the part of cow-boy.

Very sparingly disposed were those same Prussians, as I discovered afterwards to my cost; for in an evil moment I yielded to their persuasions to set up housekeeping with them on our own hook in a miserable though curiously ingenious little hovel of their own construction. Here I learned how far the force of economy could go, and the lesson certainly was not worth the price. We took it in turn to cook, but their watchful eye was rarely off me in my experiments in that line. If I were to put what they considered a grain too much sugar in the cakes, or committed any like extravagance, one or other of them would be sure to jump up excitedly and stay my hand, exclaiming, with an assumption of playfulness, it is true, but in tones vibrating with the most genuine solicitude: "Du bist verrückt, mein Kind! Know you not dere vas von hunered cents in von dollar? Yah, it all counts oop, I tell you." From having had enormous appetites in the sectionhouse, they became abstemious to an almost dangerous degree. The younger of the two would frequently throw himself at dinner-time on his couch, light his pipe, and, smoking furiously, assert that he had "no hoonger." I could almost have found it in my heart to follow his example on the days when prairie chicken -a dish I had once delighted in fig. ured on the table, I having had the plucking and otherwise revolting preparation of it for the oven the night before. Their section-house. incessant fussiness, moreover, and perpetual "monkeying " over some unnecessary contrivance or other, were not a little trying to my British phlegm. And it was certainly aggravating, at what should have been the peaceful close of day, when the

Besides the plague of the mosquitoes, though fortunately not in their numbers, or soon nothing of us would have been left, there was a species of large black fly, with a pair of huge mandibles and a voracious appetite, which it sought to appease on our blood. Sharp and sudden was the onslaught of this monster-one hasty nip, as from a pair of scissors, and it was gone, but, looking at the smarting spot, you would see its token in a drop of blood.

One broiling summer's day I ventured on a bathe in the marshy lake near the Not one of these flies was visible when I reached the water, and, armed with a handkerchief in case of emergency, I boldly waded in, scaring off a flock of ducks which had been placidly sunning themselves on its glassy surface. The lake was of pretty wide extent, lying

level with the prairie, and, as far as I immediately supplied by the obliging barcould judge, no more than knee-deep in tender with a glass-fortunately for him any part. No sooner had I got well out a small one, though its cost is ten cents beyond its sedgy border than the fun (for containing a villanous compound, looking, the flies, that is) began, and one came it is true, not unlike the genuine article at hovering near me, my unprotected state its muddiest, but the only effect of which, no doubt presenting most unusual attrac-if taken in any quantity, is to produce tions. I flicked it off, and was sharply unlimited nausea. Such, however, is the bitten in the rear by another, of whose force of imagination, or of Kabit, for I can presence I had not till then been aware. attribute it to nothing else, that men will Gradually the number of my assailants sit playing cards by the hour, the stakes increased, and fierce and fast waged the being that delectable concoction, which unequal combat-flick here, bite there. they make believe to toss off with a relish, In vain I sought refuge in the none too though next to the pleasure of winning pellucid shallows of the lake- my head the game, in this case if in any, must cerwas still at their mercy. In vain Í grov- tainly have been that of losing it. But elled altogether beneath the surface; want for all the care taken to keep intoxicants of breath forced me up again, until the out of the country, spirits are smuggled battle degenerated on my part into a sort and surreptitiously sold up here. Some of wild Indian war-dance, the handker- of our men going up to Calgary got as chief, which I swept madly about, doing drunk as any British navvy could desire duty for a tomahawk. And something of on the wretched stuff palmed off as whisthe old brave's delight in slaughter in- key, and at the most exorbitant price. spired me when I laid an enemy low. But the "raskils" were too many for me, and, sore discomfited, I at last beat a hasty and ignominious retreat, closely followed by my adversaries, who kept skirmishing around to the bitter end.

Winter sets in early in the North-West, and from the commencement of the dark mornings we never started to work before eight o'clock, sometimes, after driving out to raise a piece of track, finding the ground impenetrable to our shovels, owing to the frost. On such occasions we were free to occupy ourselves as we chose, some of the men preparing traps for foxes, or else investigating results with regard to those they had set over night-fox-skins meeting with a ready sale. Only a few of the hands are kept on after November, two on each section, the rest getting free passes east, there being next to no work on the track until the frost breaks up.

It is in the spring that the majority of the laborers find their way to these parts, and many of those fresh from the old country probably know little of the sort of life awaiting them. For one thing, the sale of intoxicating liquors being prohibited, the uninitiated and thirsty pilgrim experiences a rough awakening when, at one of the Western towns his train may stop at, making straight for a, saloon, of which there are no lack, he, in the innocence of his heart, demands refreshment for his failing spirit in the shape of beer. Not that his request is denied, for he is

The great drawback to section life, when remote from any town, is the dreariness and monotony of its surroundings, which would be apt to depress the spirits even of a Mark Tapley, and few of us were sorry to receive our discharge.

It was late one bleak November night, the snow lying thick upon the ground, that the train which was to bear us to Winnipeg, a distance of several hundred miles, came down from the Rockies, already nearly full of men it had picked up from the sections on its way. Short time was given us to get "aboard," and the two young Prussians, who were to stay on with Joe for the winter, obligingly helped me in with my box (having, as I afterwards discovered, greatly lightened it of its contents). The last image on my mind was that of Joe, standing somewhat disconsolately watching our departure, his honest countenance scantily illumined by the light from the telegraph operator's shanty. The scene of our sometime labors was soon left far behind, as on we sped, stopping at each section on our way to take in living freight, until the cars were crammed. A motley crew we were, and cooped up together through what seemed an eternity, the only diversion being the passing of the train-boy at intervals through our midst offering his wares for sale, and the occasional quarrelling of the men after the whiskey region had been reached.

From The Westminster Review.

most cautious be able to deny that the THE PEOPLE'S GOETHE story and the plot are worked out with

HANS SACHS:
OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.

a shoe

maker and poet too.

("Hans Sachs war ein Schuh

macher und Poet dazu.")

Yet this absurd ditty is almost the only thing some men know, or believe they know, of the works of the patriarch of the master-singers and the father of the German secular drama. So also, Richard Wagner is guiltless of having described his own compositions as the "music of the future." In a letter to Hector Berlioz, contained in the seventh volume of Wagner's "Collected Writings and Poems," the reader may find the details of this quid pro quo.

But by one of those strange freaks of ill-luck, against which the best-intentioned are not always proof, Wagner himself commits the unpardonable mistake of put. ting in the mouth of "the people's Goethe of the sixteenth century that self-same rhyme which some bigoted Romanist hater of the memory of Hans Sachs had weakly invented as a would-be squib against him! However, opinion here and abroad is at one on the exquisite charm of the music in the "Meistersinger von Nürnberg." Thoughtful English critics, otherwise not in the least enamored of Wagner's later style or second manner, have pronounced it to be of unsurpassed beauty — refined, captivating, and always suggestive of the dramatic sentiment and situation. At the same time, we confess that the question may be raised whether the impression created by the play is quite in keeping with the character and the literary importance of the whilom head of the civic bards of Germany.

In Wagner's play, the description of town life in the later mediæval epoch is, no doubt, a graphic one. Nor will the

remarkable skill and much delicacy. The
interest never flags for a moment; and
there are humorous scenes of irresistible
effect, albeit those strangely err who as
sume that the poet composer meant to
write a
"comic opera."

Still, any one more deeply acquainted with the works and the former standing of the "cobbler bard of Nuremberg" would wish some higher traits had been added in the treatment of his figure. Full allowance may certainly be made for the playwright's necessities. Strong contrasts are always theatrically impressive. Now, by way of effective set-off, Walter von Stolzing, who, in the tournament of song, earns the prize for melodic verse, and carries off, as the doubly successful lover, the charming daughter of Pogner, the goldsmith, is brought forward, by Wagner, in colors of noblest beauty of mind, as against a crowd of handicraftsmen-bakers and pewterers, grocers, soap-boilers, and furriers, who are mere pedantic dabblers in poetry. To some extent, this striking contrast may even account for the great,success of the representation. But from the natural tendency to exaggeration which is involved in the droll antithesis, the image of Hans Sachs himself seems to me unduly to suffer.

Altogether, it can scarcely be said that full justice has been done to him in this portraiture. No doubt, at the end, atonement is made for the insufficiency. Then the wreath of honor, gained by Walter von Stolzing, is placed by Eve's hand on the brow of Hans Sachs, when the latter vindicates the poetic art of the people in a patriotic harangue addressed to the triumphant young scion of a noble family.

This harangue, beginning with the words, "Verachtet mir die Meister nicht," is strictly true, historically speaking, as regards the national life of Germany in times past. Before the tribunal of poetical art, long pedigrees and famed ancestry, however noble and worthy, escutcheon, spear, and sword, went for nothing. A master-singer alone, who had himself given his proofs, could confer the prize; and this he did on the sole ground of merit. When literature was no longer honored by courts and princes, it found a safe place of shelter, in evil days of storm and stress, among the people of the cities. There it was cultivated in a national sense. But for the master-singers, the true German sentiment would have sadly degenerated. Hence, Wagner is fully justified

Then, a noble, beauteous, and truthful woman is introduced — namely, the Genius of Nature. Under her guidance, Hans Sachs sees and portrays the world with its In order to find a congenial poetical soil on passionate and curiously confused strivwhich we could take our stand, and where ings, as Albrecht Dürer saw and porwe could breathe with true freedom of mind trayed it. In rapid allusion, a number of freisinnig), we had to go back a few centu- other guides and associates of the Nuries, when solid capacities rose splendidly remberg poet are referred to; representafrom a chaotic condition; and thus we entered tives of history and mythology, of merry into friendly intercourse with the poetry of tales and mad drollery, as well as of rothose bygone ages. The Minnesingers [Ger-mantic love. Taught, spurred, and alterman Troubadours] were too far removed from

This was published in 1811, when In one thing Goethe was mistaken; and Goethe was at the mature age of sixty- his mistake is easily accounted for. At two years. Long before, in his "Poetical his time, when he thus powerfully restored Mission of Hans Sachs,” he had sung the the memory of Hans Sachs, the position praise of the citizen poet in most fervent which the latter had held in the esteem of strains; uttering strange curses against his contemporaries was utterly obscured; "the folk that would not know their mas.and not even Goethe knew it in its full