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[-165-]
THE GERMAN FAIR.
IF Paterfamilias wishes for a new sensation, let him provide himself with
a big basket and follow me. It will try his dignity, perhaps, to be seen
struggling amid a mob of children; but, after all, he will not get half as much
put out as in the crush-room of the Opera, and I promise
him more thorough delight, far brighter eyes, and more
genuine laughter than he will meet with there. Say it is
three o'clock in the afternoon and on a seasonable December day when our cab drives up to the German Fair in
Regent Street. Was there ever such a crowd before of
merry little feet all pattering and pushing along the
entrance. hall lined with Christmas-trees? Paterfamilias
perhaps has not forgotten that cry of "Eureka !" the ten
thousand gave when they first caught sight of the sea; but
we question if it was half as hearty as the joyous "Oh!"
that burst from the mouths of a hundred "terrible
Turks," as they swarm into the glittering hall of the
German Fair.
Twice in our lives toys make themselves known to us as
great facts. In youth, when we play with them and smash
them ourselves, and in middle age, when we do it by [-166-]
deputy in the persons of our own children; and, possibly,
if you ask Paterfamilias, he will tell you that he enjoys
them the second time more than the first for then there
are more to smash, and more to laugh and enjoy. But, if
a man has any heart in him, how must he delight to
see five hundred urchins all boiling over with pleasure,
whilst five hundred mammas and papas are enjoying their
happiness.
In my young days, when George IV. was king, toys
were toys, and youngsters were obliged to use them economically; but now there is no such necessity, for here
we are in a room where it is impossible to spend more than
a penny at time. I can get anything for a penny from
a capital yard measure to a soup tureen and as I
am alive! there is Paterfamilias with his basket half-full
already. He has a railroad that moves, a duck that swims,
a trumpet that blows, a doll that cries, a perambulator that
runs, and a monkey that jumps over a pole, and he has only got rid of sixpence! It becomes absolutely absurd
to have so much for your money, and how he will manage to spend the sovereign he
designs is to me a mystery. All around him urchins are busy. "I've had one of
those, and two of those, and three of these, and four of those!"
Why, it reminds us of Punch's satiated schoolboy settling
his reckoning in the cake-shop, only here the boy has his
cakes and toys still to enjoy. But there is a sixpenny and
a shilling counter not far off, and interspersed amid the
meaner gew-gaws, toys that rise to the rank of real works
of art.
Whilst Paterfamilias is picking out his two hundred and
forty separate and distinct toys, let us pause for a moment, [-167-]
and ask where they all come from. Reader, have you ever
travelled for a livelong day through the dark and melancholy
pine or fir forests of Germany? Ever listened to
the soughing of the wind through the branches, or walked
on the dumb carpet of pine tassels? If so, what has been
the complexion of your thoughts? Possibly like mine,
gloomy as the Halls of Dis. Yet, from these old inky
forests, from the green valleys up which the pine-trees
climb like black priests to the mountain summit, rush the
torrents of toys which push on from year to year and penetrate
into every nursery in Europe. In the recesses of the
old Thuringian and other forests are glued, and turned,
and painted, the legions of soldiers, the fleets of Noah's arks,
and the countless whips, rattles, and squeaking dolls,
that go to their last account in the snug nurseries of
Europe. Strange fact, that in these grim forests half the
laughter and joy of childhood should find their birth!
The same principle that plants cotton-factories in Lancashire determines
the production of toys the presence of the raw material. If the pine logs from which
they are manufactured were not immediately at hand, there
would be no penny toys and, possibly, no German Fair.
Let us examine one of these penny articles. Here is a
man wheeling a barrow of fruit. The prime cost of this
article in the forest where it was made is only a kreuzer, or
one-third of a penny ! The rest represents its package
and carriage to these shores, the duty, and profit of the
proprietor. It seems inconceivable that for so small a sum:
such a result can be obtained, for the man is well enough
proportioned, his barrow really will run, and the fruit is
coloured after nature. A little inquiry, however, at the [-168-]
same time that it clears up the mystery only increases our
astonishment.
In the first place, the wood is obtained for a mere
nothing. For instance, the Grand Duke of Saxe Meiningen,
on whose estates the flourishing toy colony of
Sonneberg is situated, allows his people to select any tree
from his forest close at hand for 2½d. Thus the raw
material may be said to be given to them. Again, the
organisation and division of labour carried on to an
extent in the production of these trifles which we can only
liken to that exhibited in this country by watchmakers or
pin fabricators. Let us revert to the man with the barrow
of fruit, for instance. Possibly a dozen hands have been
employed in its production. The man who turned the body
of the figure, had nothing to do with his arms. A third
person was employed to put together the barrow; a fourth
to turn the wheel; a fifth to put the spokes in ; a sixth to
put the linch-pin in ; a seventh to turn the fruit; an eighth
to turn the basket on which they are placed; a ninth
to colour the fruit; a tenth to colour the barrow; an
eleventh to glue the whole together; and a twelfth to
supply the final varnish. The incredible rapidity with which
this minute division of labour enables the men, women,
and children to accomplish each detail, is the secret of the
whole matter. Not only do the dozen individuals manage
to make a living out of the third of a penny, or rather less,
which is to be divided amongst them, but they contrive to live comfortably and respectably into the bargain. The
toy, thus completed, has to be packed and conveyed hundreds
of miles along Alpine roads and down rapid rivers,
until it is finally transported by the Rotterdam steam-boat [-169-]
to our shores, to be again unpacked and displayed by Mr.
Cremer in the German Fair. The history of the fruit-barrow
is the history of almost every wooden article on the
penny counters of this extraordinary place. The process
of manufacture is the same throughout Germany, but the
localities from which the different toys come are widely
different. The vast majority are made at Grunhainscher,
in Saxony. The glass comes from Bohemia. The bottles
and cups are so fragile, that the poor workman has to
labour in a confined and vitiated atmosphere, which cuts
him off at thirty-five years of age. All articles that
contain any metal are the produce of Nuremberg and the
surrounding district. This old city has always been one of
the chief centres of German metal work. The workers in
gold and silver of the place have long been famous, and
their iron-work is unique. This speciality has now
descended to toys. Here all toy printing-presses, with
their types, are manufactured; magic-lanterns; magnetic
toys, such as ducks and fish, that are attracted by the
magnet; mechanical toys, such as running mice and conjuring tricks, also come from Nuremberg. The old city is
pre-eminent in all kinds of toy diablerie. Here science
puts on the conjuror's jacket, and we have a manifestation
of the Germanesque spirit of which their Albert Durer was the embodiment. The more solid articles which attract
boyhood, such as boxes of bricks, buildings, &c., of plain
wood, come from Grunhainscher, in Saxon).
Very latterly a rapidly-increasing town named Furth
has sprung up, six miles from Nuremberg, entirely devoted
to the manufacture of Noah's arks, dissected puzzles, &c.
The toys with motion, such as railroads, steam-vessels, [-170-]
.and moving cabs, are the speciality of the people of
Biberach, in Wurtemberg. And where should those splendid
cuirasses, helmets, guns, and swords come from but
Hesse Cassel, the centre of soldiering Germany? But the
workmen of the principality are not entirely devoted to
arms. The charming little shops, and parlours, and the dolls' houses without which no nursery is complete
are
made here. Neither must we forget the theatres, beloved
of boys. Here and there some exquisite little interior of
a cafι, with its fittings of marble tables, bottles, mirrors,
and plate, attract the attention, and the inquirer learns
with astonishment that they are made by felons in Prussian
prisons. The taste and dexterity of hand displayed
is amazing, and the result far preferable to the miserable
hemp-beating or "grindings at nothing" at which some of
our own prisoners are so fruitlessly employed.
But this counter is fitted up as a refreshment stall.
Here we have rolls and sausages and ducks and bottles of champagne and a hundred other dainties; but the
children are too cunning; they are only shams paper. The Berliners
who make them call them "surprises," for it is
rather a surprise to find bonbons for the stuffing of fowls,
and sugar-plums tumbling out of simulated pieces of embroidery.
Now and then we find a greater surprise still,
for there goes a rich plum pudding floating up to the
ceiling an edible balloon.
But where do all the dolls come from? I hear my little flaxen ringlets say. Dolls are an universal vanity
almost
as universal as vanity itself. They seem to be made
everywhere, excepting the one country that has a
repute for making them. The wooden-jointed specimens [-171-]
known as Dutch dolls all over the world, really come
from the Tyrol, where wood-carving is a very ancient art.
The Dutch have the credit of their production simply
from the fact, that they are generally shipped from Rotteredam, which is found to be the most convenient port for
German goods coming from the interior. To the Dutch,
however, we are indebted for the introduction of the crying
doll, which, I am happy to inform my young friends, cries
for a penny almost as natural as life. The pattern originally
came from Japan (a nation very ingenious in toys),
and has long been lying in the Museum at the Hague.
The German toy-makers, however, are now constructing
them upon the same model. Fine wax dolls, with natural hair, are made, we are informed, at Petersdorff, in Silesia..
It will be flattering, however, to the national vanity to be
informed, that the Londoners alone are capable of making
the finest and most expressive dolls. The French, clever
as they are, cannot touch us here. Some of the higher
class English dolls are perfect models the eyes are full of expression, and the hair is set on like nature itself. The
faces are originally modelled in clay, and the wax is put
on in successive layers. The highest class of workmen
alone are capable of this kind of work. The beauty of
Grecian sculpture is ascribed to the fine natural forms
which their artists had to copy. Possibly we owe to the
beauty of our women, in a like manner, our superiority in dolls, which now rank almost as works of art.
It must be evident that where wood is employed as the
material for toy-making, it is impossible to hope for anything
very artistic at a rate that can be paid by the great
middle class. This fact has led to the employment of [-172-]
substance that can be cast in a mould, and yet be sufficiently
tough to bear knocking about. Those who examined
the Zollverein department in the Exhibition of 1851 will
remember the beautiful toys exhibited by Adolphe Fleischmann.* [* The toys
exhibited at the Great Exhibition were purchased by
Mr. Cremer, of Bond Street, and formed the foundation of the
present German Fair. The Great Exhibition has certainly borne
no more welcome fruit to children than the establishment of this
fountain of pleasure.] These were composed of papier-machι, mixed
with a peculiar kind of earth. Since that time the art or
toy-making in this new material has undergone a very
great development all over Germany; but at Sonneberg,
in Saxe Meiningen, a school of art has been established by
the duke, for the cultivation of the workmen in the arts of
design. In this school, models of all the best antique and modern
sculpture are to be found, and collections of good
prints. To this school all the young children are sent to model,
under pain of a fine; and an art education is the
result, which shows itself in the exquisite little models which come from the ateliers of Adolphe Fleischmann.
There are now in the German Fair models of animals that
a sculptor may copy. Bulls, lions, asses, &c., delineated
with an anatomical nicety which is really wonderful.
Many of the works of art produced by him are copied
from well-known engravings, and are entitled solid pictures.
There is one in the Fair now, representing Luther and
his family around a Christmas tree in the room he
once occupied. The modelling of this group originally cost
nine guineas, but the moulds once produced, the subsequent
copies are procurable at a very cheap rate. There [-173-]
can be no doubt that to familiarize children with well-designed.
toys is a very important step towards educating
the race in she love of art. We cannot help thinking,
however, that what the future man will gain, the child
will lose. If we make our toys too good, they will either
be used as ornaments, or children will be stinted. of their
full enjoyment of them, for fear they may be injured which
God forbid. It may be very wrong. and possibly I
am inculcating very destructive principles, but I cannot
help thinking that a judicious smashing of toys now and
then is a very healthy juvenile occupation.
There are some little monsters we know, that will keep
their toys without speck or spot for years, but they are doomed to die old maids or bachelors. Besides, how could
we better or earlier satisfy the analytic spirit that is within
us, than by breaking open the drummer-boy to see what
makes him drum? With this destructive view of the
subject, we think Mr. Cremers the proprietor of the Fair,
is entitled to the thanks of every paterfamilias in the
kingdom, for at a penny a-piece our children may break
their toys to their heart's content. How many of these
penny toys does my reader imagine are here sold day by day? Fifty pounds' worth! A little calculation shows
that this sum represents 12,000 toys. Now, calculating
each toy to produce only ten occasions of enjoyment, we
have 120,000 bursts of merriment dispersed every day
about Christmas time to the rising generation of London
alone, to say nothing of the enjoyment produced by the
higher-priced toys. How that joy is rejected by the fond
mothers' eyes a hundredfold, I need not say; and as to going
on with the calculation, that is quite out of the question.
[-174-] The Saxon is the great
consumer of
the toys produced
by the Saxon. England and America take more toys
than any other nation. The value of the toys imported to
England alone in the year 1846 was 1,500,000 florins ;
and the paper and packthread with which they were
packed cost 25,000 florins or £2,100!
Whilst Paterfamilias toils after me with his handbasket,
let me draw the attention of my young friends to
the old monk near the doorway, who carries in one hand a
Christmas tree, whilst he holds in the other a birch for
naughty boys, but over his shoulder we see a bag of toys
for the good ones. This is St. Nicholas, the patron of
children. On Christmas Eve it is the fashion throughout
France and Germany, to prepare the children of the household
for his nocturnal visit. Refreshment is laid for himself,
and hay and other provender for his ass. In the
morning the eager children find the food and provender
gone, but in their place all kinds of beautiful toys. Mr.
Cremer is our St. Nicholas, and does the business of the
old monk without any mystery, but in an equally satisfactory manner.