Building Your Dream Canadian 10th Edition Good Solutions Manual

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MULTIPLE CHOICE. Choose the one alternative that best completes the statement or answers the question.

1) Under which business form, does the owner have complete control over the conduct and management
of the business?
A) Sole proprietorship
B) Limited
partnership C)
General partnership
D) Corporation
Answer: A

2) All of the following are advantages of the sole proprietorship form of business organization, except:
A) No sharing of profits
B) Individual control
C) Limited liability
D) Tax simplicity
Answer: C

3) As a sole proprietor, your taxes are:

A) Paid in installments throughout the year, but keep separate from your personal employment
income. B) Fairly simple, since your business income is declared on your personal tax return.
C) Declared on a separate form provided by Revenue
Canada. D) More complex, compared to a corporation.
Answer: B

4) Many small businesses are no longer using Excel, instead preferring the use of to handle
estimates, invoice clients, and keep track of expenses.
A) iAccounting
B) Quicken
C) Freshbooks
D) MacBook
Answer: C

5) Small businesses in Ontario must register for and start collecting HST once their business
makes: A) A profit.
B) Dividend payments to its
shareholders. C) Over $30,000.
D) Credit available to its
customers. Answer: C
1
6) In Ontario, small businesses should plan to pay approximately in taxes, when considering both
HST
and income tax that they must surrender to Revenue Canada at the end of the year.
A) 20-
30% B)
60-80% C)
35-50% D)
10-15%
Answer: C

2
 7) If your business is paid $15,000 for providing services to a client, but it cost you $6000 in supplies
and equipment in order to provide that service, then you will be taxed on:
A) $21 000
B) $9000
C) $15 000
D) $6000
Answer: B

8) A general partnership is most similar to a _, expect for the number of people running the
business.
A) Multiple
partnership B) Limited
partnership C) Sole
proprietorship D)
Corporation
Answer: C

9) All of the following are advantages of a general partnership, except:

A) Pooling of financial resources
B) Increased ability to obtain capital
C) Unlimited liability
D) Simplicity and ease of organization
Answer: C

10) Which of the following is considered to be a disadvantage of the general partnership form of
business organization?
A) Growth potential
B) Greater access to capital
C) Divided authority
D) Greater talent pool
Answer: C

11) Which of the following is considered a disadvantage of a limited partnership?

A) Great access to capital
B) Difficulty in changing ownership
C) Limited liability
D) Growth potential
Answer: B

12) In order to incorporate, a business must be earning:

A) There is no specific earnings threshold for incorporation
B) In excess of $100,000
C) Less than $30,000
D) In excess of $500,000
Answer: A

13) The structure of a co-op is maintained by a one-member/one- system.

A) Autocratic; vote
B) Private; share
C) Democratic; vote
D) Public; share
3
Answer: C

4
14) A co-operative is owned and operated
by: A) Its membership
B) The federal government
C) The provincial government
D) The public sector
Answer: A

15) Credit unions are:

A) Agricultural co-operatives
B) Financial co-operatives
C) Marketing co-operatives
D) Manufacturing co-operatives
Answer: B

16) How do survival rates of co-operatives compare to those of other business corporations?
A) There is no research which compares the sustainability of co-operatives to that of other
business corporations.
B) The survival rate of a co-operative enterprise is more than twice that of other business corporations
after
10 years.
C) The survival rate of a co-operative enterprise is about half that of other business corporations
after 10 years.
D) Co-operatives are less sustainable than other business
corporation. Answer: B

17) All of the following are examples of Canadian co-operative enterprises,

except: A) Desjardins
B) Sportinglife
C) The Co-operators Insurance
D) Mountain Equipment Co-operative
Answer: B

18) Which of the following company names does not require formal registration for a sole proprietorship?
A) Sunlight Spa
B) Peter Wan's Painting Professionals
C) Eager Beaver
D) Fanciful Flowers
Answer: B

19) When it comes to selecting a business name to be registered, or for the purpose of incorporation, all
of the following apply except:

A) Any name that is similar to a name already registered will be rejected to avoid public
confusion. B) The name must be acceptable to the Registrar of Companies in your province.
C) Names are generally approved on the first submission.
D) The name is typically reserved for your exclusive use for 90 days.
Answer: C

5
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frequently cut with infinite labor in the hard rock, and with every
economy of the land. Every inch of the ground is valuable, because only
on the side of certain hills will these vines come to perfection. These
lands, after being purchased at so high a rate, need constant attention; for
the soil is washed away from these steeps beneath the stone walls, and
must be replaced every spring; every clod of earth is a great treasure, and
they carefully collect the earth which has been thrown out of a ditch to
fill up their vineyard patches. A square foot of land is reckoned to
produce two bottles of wine annually. Every portion of a vine is used; the
stems and leaves serving as food for the cattle; the husks, after being
pressed and wedged into round moulds, then dried, are used for fuel,
burning something as peat does. In many houses of this section the
cellars are enormously large, with a capacity as high as a million bottles
each; and they are often used as the common sitting- and reception-
room.80 Vineyards also flourish on the slopes surrounding the lakes of
Neuchâtel, Biel, and Zurich; in the valleys of the larger rivers and certain
plains of northern Switzerland they are found to a small extent. Still, the
wine produced is not sufficient for the demand, and over 15,000,000
gallons are annually imported; in this consumption the great number of
tourists who come every season must be taken into account.
Growing grass and fodder, cattle-breeding, and cheese-making are
the most important branches of Swiss agriculture. For ages the forest
Cantons had little tillable land reclaimed, and from difficulty of
communication with the outside world the people were thrown almost
entirely upon their own scanty local resources. With hardly any means of
getting supplies from without, with very little land for cultivating cereals,
and in the days before maize and potatoes, their chief reliance was upon
their cows. It is very much so even at this day, but in those days the
reliance was all but unqualified. Their cows supplied them not only with
a great part of their food, but also, through the surplus cheese, with tools,
and everything else they were incapable of producing themselves, from
the singularly limited resources of their secluded valleys. The Switzer
was then the parasite of the cow. There were no ways in which money
could be made; there were no manufactures and no travellers; and so
there were no inn-keepers to supply travellers, nor shop-keepers to
supply the wants of operatives, manufacturers, and travellers; and there
were none who had been educated up to the point that would enable
them to go abroad to make money with which they might return to their
old home. If the general population had not had the means of keeping
cows, they would not have had the means for livelihood. The problem
therefore for them to solve was,—how was every family to be enabled to
keep cows? The solution was found in the Allmends,—lands held and
used in common. The natural summer pastures were common, and every
burgher had the right to keep as many cows upon them in the summer as
he had himself kept during the previous winter with the hay he had made
from his labor-created and labor-maintained patch of cultivated ground,
or, as it was called, prairies; or, if as yet he had no prairies, with the dried
leaves and coarse stuff he had been able to collect from the common
forest. This system was both necessary and fair. It originated in the
nature of the country, and its then economical condition, and in turn it
created the Swiss life and character. Every one knows La Fontaine’s
story of Perrette going to the market to buy eggs; the eggs are hatched
into chickens, the chickens produce a pig and then a calf, and the calf
becomes a cow. This dream of Perrette’s is daily realized by the Swiss
peasant farmer. He picks up grass and manure along the road; he raises
rabbits, and with the money they bring he buys first a goat, then a pig,
next a calf, by which he gets a cow producing calves in her turn. Milk is
the great thing desired by the pastoral people, and not to possess a milk-
giving animal is esteemed such a misfortune that, as a little solace to the
poor, cream is in certain places regularly distributed to them on the third
Sunday in August. Switzerland varies, through a decennial period, from
thirty to thirty-five head of horned cattle to every hundred inhabitants,
yet it actually imports butter and cattle. It consumes more animal food
than the contiguous countries, viz., twenty-two kilos. of meat, twelve
kilos. of cheese, five of butter, and one hundred and eighty-two of milk
per head per annum. To the Swiss may be applied the words of Cæsar as
to the ancient Britons: “Lacte et carne vivunt.” The country is well
adapted for the keeping and breeding of cattle, being favored with good
grass, water, and air. Large sums are expended by the various cantonal
governments upon schemes for the improvement of the breed of cattle
and for the facilitation of their transport from the place of production to
the market. The cattle for milking, draught, and fattening are not kept
and treated separately with a single object only being kept in view; the
Swiss cow is expected to unite all these qualities at one time within
herself. It is believed that a cow is positively benefited by being put to
the plough, especially if the work be done in the morning; and few
bullocks, but many cows, are frequently seen serving various draught
purposes, not with the yoke, but with harness similar to that used for the
horse. A cow which, at the time of calving, fails to give eighteen litres
(litre = .88 quart) of milk is not considered of any value. A fair average
for the Swiss cow is ten quarts of milk per day the milking year through,
and five thousand three hundred and fifteen pounds of milk per cow is an
annual average yield for the milking season of nine months. In England
the famous short-horned cows furnish only an average of four thousand
six hundred and eighty-eight pounds, and the highest average of milk
received at the best dairies of the State of New York reaches a little over
four thousand pounds, making a difference in favor of Swiss cows of
over thirteen hundred pounds. The federal government makes an annual
appropriation for the improvement of cattle, and in the distribution of the
subsidy confines itself to those Cantons where cattle-breeding receives
local assistance and encouragement. All subsidies are made subject to
various conditions to secure the fullest benefit therefrom. These require
an annual examination of all breeding-bulls to be held at a district show;
prize bulls must be used in the Canton for at least one year after the
awarding of the prize; breeding-bulls must be registered, and none
unregistered may be so used; prize cows must also remain a certain time
in the Commune, and must not leave the Canton before calving. The
Swiss have superior breeds of cattle for yield of milk, aptitude for
fattening, and capability of working, as well as handsome in appearance.
From reports made by United States consuls, the two best-known and
highly-prized breeds of cattle appear to be the parti-colored and the
brown; the difference prevailing in each being, mainly, in point of size
and greater or less degree of fineness. The parti-colored breed is seen at
its best in the valleys of the Simme, Saane, and Kander, in the Gruyère
and Bulle districts, and generally over the western and northern parts of
Switzerland. They are large, and among the heaviest cattle in Europe;
their ground color is white, and it is marked with dun, reddish-yellow, or
black; the milk from these cows is admirably adapted for making cheese
and butter. Some of the most famous cheeses known to the market are
from the milk of these “fleck” or spotted cows. They fatten kindly, and,
owing to strength and size, are well suited for draught purposes. The
brown race consists of a heavy Schwyz breed, the medium-size breed
from Unterwalden and part of the eastern Cantons, and the smaller
mountain breed. It has been called the “turf-breed,” and is considered to
be more ancient than the parti-colored. It is mostly found in Schwyz,
Zug, Luzern, and Zurich. The brown Schwyz is a beautifully-formed
cow of mouse color, running into brown; large, straight back, usually
with white streak; short, light horns, two-thirds white with tips black;
nose tipped dark gray, with light borders; udder large, white, and smooth;
usual weight about twelve hundred to thirteen hundred pounds, those
kept in the higher Alps weigh about nine hundred pounds. There is a
breed in the Valais known as the Hérens, which is considered by many to
be a separate and primitive race. These animals, having short, stout
bodies, are admirably suited to the steepest and most inaccessible
pasturage; they are readily fattened, the quality of their meat is greatly
prized by butchers, and they are renowned for their enormous powers of
draught. In 1880 a great impulse was given to the careful breeding of
cattle by the establishment of four herd-books. It is alleged that the great
number of good cows of pure blood help to make the Swiss herd-book a
failure. It began life with as many “pure bloods” as most herd-books
contain after twenty years’ existence. At the international show of Paris,
in 1878, every Swiss cow exhibited bore away a prize. They have
competed also with exhibits from Holland, England, and Denmark, and
other famous cattle and milk-producing districts of Europe. Good Swiss
cows sell from 500 to 1200 francs each. These fine milk-, butter-, and
cheese-producing animals are fed only on grass and hay the year
through; occasionally a little dry bran may be added. From May to
September the cows in the neighborhood of the mountains are herded on
the upper Alps, and this rich, nutritious, short Alpine grass sustains for
nearly four months multitudes of as beautiful cattle as are to be found in
the world. All the mountain pasturages go by the name of Alp,81 and
comprise “voralpen,” used in the spring; “mittelalpen,” middle or
intermediate pasture, remaining free of snow from the first of June to the
end of September, and “hochalpen,” sometimes nine thousand feet high,
for sheep and goats. Except when on these Alpine pastures, the cows
have only house-feeding, and, there being no grazing-fields aside from
the Alps, the cows of the plains are stall-fed through the entire year. In
the summer the fresh-cut grass is fed to them. It is economy to cut the
grass and carry it in as against permitting the meadows to be trampled,
grass wasted, and the animals worried with flies. The cattle-stables are
long, low, rectangular attachments to the barns. They are always built of
stone, with walls about two feet thick. The stalls are usually ceiled over
head, and often plastered throughout; the floors stone or cement, and
bedded with poor hay, straw, or saw-dust, and a tight-fitting; oak door is
at the end of the rectangle. These barns are very warm, but thoroughly
ventilated, and the stalls are clean and nice beyond comparison. The
cows are marched out to exercise, air, and water daily; they are curried
and cared for the same as fine horses; their coats are brushed until they
shine, and the animals are evidently vain of their beauty. In this, as in
other cases, man’s regard for the lower animals appears to be rewarded
by an increase in their intelligence. The universal reasons given for thus
penning up these cows are: “It saves feed,” “the cows give more milk for
the warmth,” “there are no flies to worry them,” and “more manure is
obtained.” The peasant, pointing to the manure heap, will say, “Out there
is where the per cents. are made.” As grass and hay are almost
exclusively fed, it is requisite that these be of the best quality and of
sufficient quantity. There is a great variety and succession of green crops
for feeding in the house, almost the year round, carefully cultivated. A
moist climate, frequent appliance of liquid manure,82 and the practice of
growing fruit-trees in the meadows prevent drought in Switzerland. Then
much moisture comes from the incessant filtration of the melting glaciers
which are constantly dissolving under the heat of the sun. The conditions
of moisture and sunshine give to the country its abundance of grass,
causing it to grow anywhere. You see it rapidly establishing itself on the
tops of roadside walls. On a heap of stones lichens and moss soon
appear, and, by their decay, in time fill the interstices, then a mantle of
turf creeps over it. In excavations on hill-sides, where the mountain
torrent brings down successive avalanches of rocky detritus, each
successive layer in turn and in time becomes consolidated with mould
and then covered with turf. Indeed, a greater part of the valleys consists
of nothing but a film of soil superimposed on fragments of rock. There
are two or three grass crops in Switzerland yearly,—the first in the
beginning of May, the second at the end of July, and often another early
in October. The mountains intercept winds and clouds, making the
amount of precipitation large. The clouds are generally intercepted by
the mountains at an elevation of five thousand feet, and then descend in
rain; higher up the precipitation is in the form of snow. There is great
difference in annual waterfalls, the greatest being as we approach the
Alps, whether from the north or south. The annual rainfall is thirty-five
inches at Basel, sixty-four and a half inches at Interlaken, sixty-nine at
Schwyz, rising to eighty-eight on the Grimsel and one hundred and two
on the St. Bernard, and falling at Lugano to sixty-three. The percentage
of snow in the total annual rainfall varies from sixty-three on the St.
Bernard to six at Geneva. The importance of this precipitation may be
understood when it is recalled that a precipitation of twenty-eight inches
is considered essential to agricultural security. The meadows are aided in
no less degree than the climate by constant fertilizing and extraordinary
care in the way of watering, draining, etc. A Swiss acre of good grass-
land is worth, in the richer and more populous Cantons, from 1500 to
2000 francs. Milk, and what is made from it, constitute the most
important resource of the peasant’s income. The manufacture of cheese
is one of the most ancient industries of the country, instruments for this
purpose having been found in different parts among the ruins of the
“Lake-dwellers,” whose date is anterior to all historical records. On
wedding occasions it was formerly the custom to present the bride and
bridegroom with a large cheese, the joint contribution of their relatives;
and this cheese was handed down, generation after generation, as a
family register, on which were inscribed births, deaths, and marriages.
Cheeses bearing date of 1660 are still to be seen. In some parts of the
country cheese forms the staple food of the people, and the laborers are
often paid with it. There are no fewer than five thousand five hundred
cheese-making factories, and nearly 13,000 tons are exported annually,
the value of which is over $7,000,000.
In 1887 there were exported to the United States 4,262,000 pounds,
at an invoice valuation of $658,000. During the Alpine pasture season
the cheese is made in the little stone huts or sennes of the herdsmen, and
brought down in the autumn; the herdsman will descend from the
pastures with a cheese weighing from one hundred and fifty to one
hundred and seventy-five pounds on his shoulders. The larger the cheese
the better its quality. Each cow is supposed to yield a hundred-weight of
cheese during the summer months. The average of fat contained in the
milk of the best Swiss cows is three and three-tenths per cent., though in
a few cases it may show four to four and a half per cent. of fat or oil. The
several varieties of cheese are classified: either according to consistency
of material, as dur, ferme, and mou (hard, firm, and soft); or according to
the proportion of fatty matter, as gras, migras, or maigre (rich, medium,
or thin); or according to the coagulation, whether by rennet (à pressure)
or by sour milk (à lait aigre). The better kinds of Swiss cheese are as
much the products of skill and high art as the Swiss watch and Swiss
embroidery. The best and most abundant, retaining nearly all the
elements of the milk, with its nutritive value, is the Emmenthal, known
as the Schweizerkäse, and is made in the valley of the Emme, Canton of
Bern. This is a round cheese eighty to one hundred centimetres in
diameter, ten to fifteen centimetres thick, and weighing from fifty to one
hundred kilos. or more. Next in importance is the Gruyère, called after
the village of that name in Freiburg, around which it is asserted grow
succulent herbs of aromatic juices, that perfume the milk of which this
cheese is made, that is so well known and highly appreciated throughout
the world. Another celebrated cheese is the Schabzieger, or green cheese,
known as the Sago or Sapsago. Its manufacture dates back to the tenth
century, and it is still largely produced in the Canton of Glarus. The
peculiarity of this cheese is due partly to the method of coagulation, and
partly to treatment with the Schabziegerklee, a plant grown for the
purpose in Schwyz. The analysis of the Emmenthal and Gruyère cheeses
is given: the former, water, 34.92; fatty matter, 31.26; caseine, 29.88;
salts, 3.94: the latter, water, 34.57; fatty matter, 29.12; caseine, 32.51;
and salts, 3.80. There is at Cham the largest and most successful milk-
condensing factory in the world, with branch establishments in England,
Germany, and Orange County, New York. It uses the milk of not less
than six to seven thousand cows, and its product is known far and wide.
At Romanshorn, also, the Swiss Alpine Milk Exporting Company does
an immense export business of pure milk produced from healthy, grass-
fed cows. These companies claim to have satisfactorily solved the
problem of condensing and preserving milk without altering its original
composition, either by the addition of sugar or other preservative
substances. Switzerland is veritably the land “flowing with milk and
honey, and cattle upon a thousand hills.” Great attention is paid to
apiaries; the honey is famed for its aroma and delicacy; though some
tourists are disposed to doubt if that which is on every breakfast-table is
all the product of the little busy hymenopteran.
The first railway on Swiss soil was a short piece from St. Louis to
Basel, opened in 1844; but the first purely Swiss line was that from
Zurich to Baden, opened in 1847; yet Switzerland has to-day more
railways in proportion to area than any other country of Europe. Its
railroad mileage per ten thousand population, stands third in Europe,
being exceeded only by Sweden and Denmark; and in outlay for the
same per capita, it comes second, England being first. By a federal law
of 1872, the right to grant concessions to railroads was vested solely in
the Confederation, but the co-operation of the Cantons was to be sought
in the preliminary negotiations. The revised Constitution of 1874
expressly sanctioned the condition into which railroad affairs had been
brought by previous legislation; for the 23d article repeats the
constitutional provisions of 1848 regarding public works, and another
article is added; the 26th declaring that “legislation on the construction
and management of railroads belongs to the Confederation.” All railroad
companies, whether confined to a single Canton or running within the
limits of more than one, and of whatever length, from trunk lines down
to the shortest funicular, desiring a concession, must first apply to the
Federal Council, submitting the necessary documents and information.
These are at once transmitted by the Federal Council to the cantonal
government or governments through which the projected railway
proposes to run, and negotiations take place between cantonal authorities
and representatives of the railway as to the concessions asked for, under
the presidency of a delegation of the Federal Council, including the chief
of that particular department. After the Federal Council has settled the
terms of the concession, it sends a message, with the text of the proposed
conditions, to the Federal Assembly for their consideration. The ultimate
decision rests with the Federal Assembly, and they may grant a
concession even if the Canton opposes it. The purchase of the Swiss
railways by the Confederation has been much discussed of late years, but
so far without any result. The Confederation has left the development of
railroads to private enterprises, and never exercised its right of subsidies
to railways except in the case of the St. Gothard Company, which pierced
the Alps with a tunnel of incalculable value to the whole of Switzerland.
By this tunnel Switzerland overcame the isolation resulting from an
altitude above the sea; linking north and south, central Europe and Italy,
in new bonds of amity, and opening through the very heart of the Alps a
new highway for the nations. It is one of the greatest triumphs of modern
engineering, one of the grandest monuments of human skill. It is the
longest tunnel in the world, being fifteen kilometres long, or nearly nine
and a half miles; one and a half miles longer than the Mont Cenis tunnel.
In addition to the great tunnel there are fifty-two smaller tunnels
approaching it, making a total length of tunnels in getting through the
Alps fifteen miles. The St. Gothard railway proper extends from
Immensee, in Switzerland, to Chiasso, in Italy, a distance of one hundred
and thirteen miles, and there are in all not less than fifty-six tunnels,
comprising more than one-fifth of the whole line, or twenty-three miles
of tunnelling. The width of the great tunnel is twenty-six feet and the
height nineteen feet. It requires, at express-train speed, sixteen minutes
to pass through it. It is about one thousand feet below Andermatt, and
five thousand to six thousand five hundred feet below the peaks of the St.
Gothard. The preliminary works were begun at Göschenen, on the north
side, June the 4th, and at Airolo, on the south side, July the 2d, 1872.
Louis Favre, of Geneva, was the contractor.83 On February 28, 1880, a
perforation from the south side penetrated the last partition between
north and south sections, and the workmen on either side exchanged
greetings. On the 22d of May, 1882, the first train passed over the line,
and every town from Luzern to Milan celebrated the completion with
banquets and excursions; and its business, passenger and traffic, at once
assumed immense proportions. The construction cost 56,000,000 francs;
which was partly paid by subventions from Switzerland, Germany, and
Italy, the conditions and respective amounts of which were the subject of
a treaty between these governments. It penetrates the mountain like a
corkscrew, making four complete loops within a distance of twenty
miles, in order to attain the requisite elevation, when it emerges into
daylight only to enter again the main tunnel. The waters of the Reuss and
the Ticino supplied the necessary motive power for working the screws
attached to the machinery for compressing the air. The borers applied to
the rock the piston of a cylinder made to rotate with great rapidity by the
pressure of air, reduced to one-twentieth of its ordinary volume; then,
when they had made the holes sufficiently deep, they withdrew the
machines and charged the mines with dynamite. After the explosion, the
débris was cleared away and the borers returned to their place. This work
was carried on day and night for nearly ten consecutive years. The
official report shows that three hundred and ten of the workmen were
killed by accidents during the building of the tunnel, and eight hundred
and seventy-seven were wounded or received minor injuries. The work
was done by Italians; no others would accept so much toil and danger for
so little pay. There were used in its construction 2,000,000 pounds of
dynamite and 700,000 kilos. of illuminating oil. The problem of keeping
the temperature and atmosphere of the tunnel within a limit involving
perfect safety to persons passing through it, proved one of the most
difficult encountered. It was satisfactorily solved by the establishment of
immense steam-pumping machines, which constantly throw in an ample
supply of fresh air, and maintain a temperature never rising above 20°
Celsius or 68° Fahrenheit. There is at present being projected, by the
Italian and Swiss governments, the Simplon tunnel, to pierce the Alps
about midway between Mont Cenis and St. Gothard, which will be one
kilometre longer than the St. Gothard,—that is, sixteen kilometres, or
about ten miles in length.
In practical engineering the Swiss may challenge rivalry with any
other nation. The suspension bridge at Freiburg, constructed in 1834, at
that time had the largest single curve of any bridge in the world, being
nine hundred feet in length, and one hundred and eighty high. One of the
most daring feats of modern engineering is the cog-wheel railway up to
Pilatus-culm, on the Lake of Luzern, six thousand seven hundred and
twenty-four feet high. The road-bed is of solid masonry faced with
granite blocks. Streams and gorges are traversed by means of stone
bridges. There are seven tunnels from thirty to three hundred feet in
length. The rack-rail, midway between and somewhat higher than the
tracks, is of wrought steel, and has a double row of vertical cogs milled
out of solid steel bars. The locomotive and car containing thirty-two
seats form one train, with two movable axles and four cog-wheels
gripping the cogs, and which, on downward trips, can be controlled by
vigorous automatic brakes. The speed of the locomotive is two hundred
feet per minute. The road has an average gradient of about one foot in
every two. Another piece of skilful engineering and of much scientific
interest is the new electric mountain railway up the Burgenstock, also on
the Lake of Luzern, it being the first application of this powerful agent to
a mountain railway. The primary source of the motive power is three
miles away, where an immense water-wheel of one hundred and fifty
horse-power has been erected. This works two dynamoes, each of thirty
horse-power. The electricity thus generated is transmitted for three miles
across the valley, by means of insulated copper wires, to another pair of
dynamoes, the negatives of the first, placed in a station at the head of the
railway. Here the electric force is converted into mechanical power by
the ordinary connection of leather belts, gearing the dynamoes, to two
large driving-wheels of nine feet diameter. Then by shafting and cogs the
power is carried on to an immense wheel of sixteen feet diameter, and
around this passes a wire rope with each end connected to the cars. One
man only is required to control the motion of the cars. The whole
apparatus for this purpose is arranged compactly before him, and no
scientific knowledge is required to manage it. Switzerland has developed
the use of electricity to a greater extent, probably, than any other country;
the mountain streams furnishing a power ready to hand, and the Swiss in
every possible way are utilizing it for electrical purposes. There is a
railway to the summit of the Jungfrau being projected that will surpass
all existing works of the kind. It will be built entirely in the rim of the
mountain, in order that it may be completely safe from storms,
avalanches, and landslips. The tunnel will be on the western slope, which
is very steep but the shortest route. It will start from Stegmalten, two
miles from Lauterbrunnen, a point two thousand eight hundred feet
above the sea, running a southeasterly direction, under the Mönch and
the Silver Horn, to the summit. The road is estimated to be twenty-one
thousand four hundred and fifty feet in length, and will run as close
beneath the surface of the mountain as possible. The engineers
supervising the construction are Herr Köchlin, who was one of M.
Eiffel’s principal assistants in building the lofty tower in Paris, and
Colonel Locher, of Luzern, the constructor of the Mount Pilatus Railway.
The cost is put at 56,000,000 francs, and it is to be completed within five
years. The magnitude of this work is shown in the statement that the
quantity of rock necessary to be removed is thirteen times that taken
from the St. Gothard tunnel. At Winterthur and Schaffhausen,
locomotives, other engines and heavy machinery of superior character,
are being made, with occasional shipments even to the United States.
The recent movement of Switzerland, following the example of other
civilized nations, in adopting a patent law, will give a new impulse to the
natural mechanical genius of its citizens, and the resultant establishment
of other prosperous manufacturing plants. This patent law, which went
into effect November, 1888, protects only material objects and not
processes. This feature is said to be due to the efforts of the
manufacturers of aniline colors and chemicals, whose interest would be
injuriously affected by a law as comprehensive as that of the United
States, which protects “useful arts” and “compositions of matter” as well
as tools and machines.
If a country’s roads be the “measure of its civilization,” Switzerland
would be easily first. Many of the roads, specially in the Alpine districts,
represent an immense cost and the boldest engineering. There is not in
the country a road for the use of which toll is charged; for, to their
apprehension, a toll would be a contradiction of the very purpose for
which the road was made. There is a road-master (wegmeister) for every
Commune, but he is appointed and paid by the Canton. Though there is
so much rainfall, the soil being permeable and favorable to the
percolation of the water, the roads, even after a heavy rain, rapidly
become dry and clean; everywhere you find them as skilfully constructed
and vigilantly repaired as the drives through a park; the cost of their
construction and maintenance is defrayed by cantonal and communal
taxation. The importance of the mountain roads is recognized by a
provision in the constitution, by which the Cantons of Uri, Grisons,
Ticino, and Valais receive an annual indemnity on account of their
international Alpine roads; to Uri 80,000 francs; to Grisons 200,000
francs; to Ticino 200,000 francs; to Valais 50,000 francs, with an
additional indemnity of 40,000 francs to the Cantons of Uri and Ticino
for clearing the snow from St. Gothard road, so long as that road shall
not be replaced by a railroad.84 These sums are to be withheld by the
federal government if the roads are not kept in suitable condition.
The “fremden-industrie,” or exploitation of foreigners, is not the least
profitable industry of the country. There are over 400 mountain resorts,
and, in fact, for months the entire country is one great consolidated hotel
company.85 Palatial hostleries with metropolitan menus and salles à
manger, bengal lights and brass bands, reached by cable roads, are
perched on crags where only the eagle used to build his eyrie or the
chamois seek refuge. In July and August a quarter of a million tourists
fill this little mountain country through its length and breadth with their
joyfulness and jargon. This annual irruption constitutes a perennial well-
spring of good fortune to many branches of industry and to a large
number of Swiss people.
 CHAPTER XVI.
PEASANT HOME AND LIFE.

“Mid the murmurings of his fountains,

And the echoes of his mountains,
Where the lordly eagle soars,
Where the headlong torrent roars,
He is, as he was meant to be,
Poor and virtuous, calm and free.”

The industry, thrift, helpfulness, and simple contentment of the Swiss

peasants, next to the natural scenery, attract our attention. One must
respect their laborious industry, frugality, and perseverance, and regret
that so much toil, with such close and unfailing economy, should have
such meagre results. Dwelling among the crags and clouds, their flats
mostly water and their slopes mostly ice, they get out of their little
holdings every farthing that they will yield, and squander nothing. There
is a kind of manliness in their never-ending struggle against the
niggardliness and severity of nature; out-braving and beating its hard
opposition. Sharp-pressing need spurs them to wring a difficult and scant
subsistence from the mountain-steeps. Secluded and poor, yet brave and
cheerful, they recall the lines from the description of the old Corycian
peasant:

“And wisely deem’d the wealth of monarchs less

Than little of his own, because his own did please.”

Every little scrap of ground is turned to the best account. If a few

square yards can anywhere be made or reclaimed the requisite labor is
not grudged. Many of these sturdy people compel an incredibly little spot
of ground to yield them enough, and some to spare. This surprising
product from a soil, much of it very poor, is due to the perfection of
spade-work; each field, or rather patch, has the perfection of shape given
to it to facilitate cultivation and drainage. This small cultivator, only with
spade in hand, can fertilize the waste and perform prodigies which
nothing but his love of the land could enable him to accomplish. These
peasants have a proverb that “if the plough has a ploughshare of iron, the
spade has a point of gold.” In the mountainous districts the land is
reclaimed by this petite culture. In fact, the man makes the very soil. He
builds terraces along steep inclines, lining them with blocks of stone, and
then packs the earth to them, transforming the mountain and the rock
into a little patch where he plants a vine or raises a little oats or maize.
Up the heights of rocks which even goats cannot climb, on the very brow
of the abyss, the peasant goes, clinging to the precipice with iron
crampers on his feet in search of grass. He hangs on the sides of the
rocks which imprison the valley and mows down a few tufts of grass
from craggy shelves. The hay thus gathered is called wildheu, and the
reaper wildheuer. This peasant mountain-mower is essentially sui
generis. He is accustomed to all the perils of the mountain, and the day
before the mowing season begins—a day fixed by communal decree—he
bids farewell, perhaps for the last time, to his wife and children. His
scythe on his shoulder, armed with his iron-shod stick, provided with his
clamp-irons, a cloth or a net rolled up in his bag, he sets out at midnight,
in order that the dawn may find him at his work. During the two months
of hay-harvest he only goes down to the village three or four times to
renew his supply of food or linen. By this hard and perilous occupation
an Alpine mower makes from three to five francs a day, his food not
included; and many times under some projecting rock he must seek a bed
and pass the night. Once dried, this wild hay is carefully gathered into a
cloth or net and carried down to the first little plain, where it can be
made into a stack, which is loaded with large stones to prevent it being
blown away. In winter, when everything is covered with snow, the
mower climbs again the perpendicular sides of the mountain, carrying
his little wooden sledge on his shoulders. He loads it with hay, seats
himself on the front, and shoots down with the swiftness of an arrow. At
times, the snow softened by the warm wind which blows upon the
heights, is detached in an avalanche behind him, and swallows him up
before he reaches the valley. This aromatic hay, composed of the
nourishing flora of the high Alps, of delicate and succulent plants, of the
wild chrysanthemum, the dwarf carline thistle, the red-flowered
veronica, the Alpine milfoil with its black calyx, the clover with its great
tufts, and the meum, an umbelliferous plant, gives a delicious milk, and
is greatly sought after for the fattening of cattle. In these steep solitudes
where the grass is found, the life of man is so exposed and accidents are
so frequent that the law forbids there should be more than one mower in
a family. With him it is a fight for life, not infrequently conducted to the
death. At all times great charges of wrath hang over him,—a beetling
crag, a stream of stones, a cataract of ice, a moving field of snow, the
flash that rends his roof, the wind that strips his trees, the flood that
drowns his land, against each of these messengers of ill he must hold a
separate watch, and must learn to brave each danger when it comes, alike
by flush of noon and in the dead of night. The little valley below lies at
the mercy of these ice- and storm-engendering heights. Year by year the
peasants fight against its being extorted from their dominion. Yet this
feeble community in the valley, by their stout hearts and virtuous lives,
continue to make it smile on the frowning mountains:

“Durum! sed levius fit patientia

Quicquid corrigere est nefas.”

It is a strange and savage reverence which the peasants feel for the
mountains. They seem to grow like each other in spirits, even as a man
and wife who live in peace grow like each other year by year. With no
people is the love of home and the native soil so strongly developed. To
return to his village in the midst of his beloved mountains is the constant
dream of his life, and to realize it he will endure every privation and bind
himself to the hardest and most painful toil. One hope possesses him,—
to see again the snows, the glaciers, the lakes, the great oaks, and the
familiar pines of his country. It is a sentiment so human—of home, of
kindred, of the accustomed locality, of country—that has fostered itself
on him and binds him to the spot with a chain he has no power to break.
The Almighty himself has implanted in the human breast that passionate
love of country which rivets with irresistible attraction the Esquimau to
his eternal snows, the Arab to his sandy desert, and the Swiss to his
rugged mountains:

“Cling to thy home: if there the meanest shed

Yield thee a hearth and shelter for thy head,
And some poor plot, with vegetables stored,
Be all that Heaven allots thee for thy board,
Unsavory bread and herbs that scatter’d grow
Wild on the river-bank or mountain brow,
Yet e’en this cheerless mansion shall provide
More heart’s repose than all the world beside.”
 There is a quietness and a sombre severity in the lives of these
peasants. In spite of occasional merry-making, pleasure-seeking is rare.
They have no great sensibility or expression of joy, but a composed
satisfaction, a kind of phlegmatic good humor, marks the boundary of
their happiness. Many visitors to the country are disposed to complain of
the plainness of their demeanor; that their speech is rough and their style
hard. The simple abruptness of the peasant’s greeting is not without its
charms. How far one feels from the obsequious manners of the city, from
profuse and insincere compliments! Is there not to some extent in all this
a philosophical basis? In general, is it not true that the members of a
republic, conscious of their independence and self-importance, adhere
less scrupulously to the conventional regularity of forms? Again, the
extreme politeness which sometimes characterizes the subject of an
arbitrary government may be the result of that policy which introduces
and encourages an exterior air of civility as the mark of subordination
and respect. The Swiss peasants have neither the time, disposition, nor
necessity to affect these elegant improvements,—fopperies of a trifling
and superficial elegance which frequently serve merely to soften the
deformities of vice. They are delightfully natural human beings, human
nature simple and unabashed, and manifest a courteous consideration for
each other’s comforts and sensibilities. They have no occasion to assert
offensively that equality of right which nobody denies, and they respect
each other’s rights as they do their own. There are no castes to clash, no
lower class to assert itself in rudeness, and no higher class to provoke
rudeness by insolent assumption. They maintain old-fashioned habits of
courteous hospitality, and the workmen in the field will shout out to the
passer-by a kindly guten tag or guten abend, with the a prolonged
beyond the amen of a chant, and the children invariably take off their
caps or drop a courtesy. Even the pastoral beggars present a species of
attractive mendicity, as the little children come out to meet you with
offerings of Alpine roses, cherries on their branches, and strawberries in
the leaves, extending their hands, with the common entreaty—bitte, bitte
(pray do).
We hear a great deal of the peasant’s chalet. Though very picturesque
in appearance, as they glisten in the sunbeams on the slopes or dot the
pastoral valleys, these chalets are by no means such charming dwellings
as often pictured. Owing to the original abundance of timber, it was
almost the only material employed in the building of these houses. There
are practically three styles: the so-called block-house, in which the logs
are laid one upon the other, notched at the ends so as to fit into each
other at the angles where they cross; the post-built house, in which
upright posts and a strong framework are filled in with planks; and the
riegelhaus, with brick or stone. All soon become dark-brown of hue, and
are quaint and distinctive in form. They are covered with low flat roofs
of shingles, weighted with stones to prevent them from being carried
away by the wind; the roofs overhang the walls like the brim of a hat,
widened to protect the face from the rain, and are frequently shaped and
sculptured by the knife with curious and patient skill. There is a
peculiarly sheltered look in the broad projection of the thatched roofs,
which, with the thick covering of moss, and their visible beams, making
all kinds of triangles upon the ancient plaster of the walls, are very odd
and attractive things. The low panelled rooms are innocent of gilding and
of painting, but are cleanliness itself. Hollow niches over the doors
contain statues of the Virgin, heroes, or saints. The plain benches, tables,
cupboards, and chairs are made of the whitest wood, and are so scoured,
washed, and polished that to paint or varnish them would be to defile
them. Most articles of furniture are quaintly shaped and ornamented, old
looking, but rubbed bright and in good preservation, from the nut-
cracker, curiously carved, to the double-necked cruet, pouring oil and
vinegar out of the same bottle. They are heated with porcelain stoves,
cylindrical in shape, two and a half to three feet in diameter, reaching
from the floor almost to the ceiling, and bound with bright brass rings to
give them strength. These stoves are built of white enamelled tile, which
is two or three inches in thickness, and the blocks of tile are put in layers,
the inside of the stove being lined with heavy fire-brick, leaving the flue
not more than ten inches in diameter. From this wall of fire-brick run a
series of small valves up and down and around, carrying the hot air to a
number of caps at the top and bottom of the stove, and thence into the
room. Wood or turf is used, and it is astonishing how little fuel is
necessary. A fire is started in the morning, the damper remains open until
the gases have all passed up the chimney, and only the smouldering
ashes remain, then the damper is closed, and no more fuel is needed for
twelve hours; if, before retiring, the process of the morning be repeated,
it will remain warm through the entire night. The stoves are not
unsightly, but in many instances ornamental, having a clean and well-
polished surface, with doors and caps of brass highly burnished. In the
centre of the stove is a receptacle for warming dishes or keeping a supply
of hot water. The stoves are placed close up in the corner, or form part of
the partition between rooms so as to be out of the way and heat two
rooms.
To some cottages there is an outside stair leading to the second story,
or even to the third, if there be one, for these houses are frequently the
property of several owners. The peasant who, in the Valais, possesses the
third part of a mule and the fourth part of a cow, has often only the half
or third of a house. “The Jura cottage has no daintiness of garden nor
wealth of farm about it,—it is indeed little more than a delicately-built
chalet, yet trim and domestic, mildly intelligent of things other than
pastoral, watch-making and the like; though set in the midst of its
meadows, the gentian at its door, the lily of the valley wild in the copses
hard by. My delight in these cottages, and in the sense of human industry
and enjoyment through the whole scene, was at the root of all pleasure in
its beauty.”86
Within and without these chalets are mural inscriptions and symbols:

“Quarter’d o’er with scutcheons of all hues,

And proverbs sage, which passing travellers
Linger to read, and ponder o’er their meaning.”

They are put upon the beam, upon panels, carved in the cornices
everywhere to catch the eye. They are most various in character, friendly
welcomes, praises of their native land, exhortations to unity, to freedom,
and to courage. On the great projecting beam supporting the roof, called
sablière, are often painted, amid ornaments and flowers, the initials
J.M.J. (Jesus, Mary, and Joseph), as well as the name of the man for
whom the house was made, and that of the master carpenter who built it.
Those of the Bernese Oberland have inscriptions reminding man of his
duty and the solemnity of life; of which the following are samples:

“The friends from whom we needs must part

’Twill pleasure give to meet again.
’Gainst malice, lies, hypocrisy,
Closed may this house forever be.”

“My God, my strength, whom I will trust,

A buckler unto me;
The horn of my salvation
 And my high tower is He.”

“On account of one day, be afraid of all days.”

Many of the inscriptions are from the Bible, and thus not only the
churches, but public buildings and private houses teach morality. In the
Grisons you see on many the arms of the three leagues engraved; one
will bear a cross, another a wild goat, a third a man on horseback, and
above them the lines carved,—

“These are the arms of the Grisons,

On the mountains their strongholds lie;
God will have the graciousness
To preserve their liberty.”

This inscription is on a church-bell, dating back four centuries:

“Vivos voco, mortuos plango, fulgura frango” (“I call the living, I mourn
the dead, I break the lightning”).
The stone chalets in Ticino have their fronts painted pink, and
decorated in Italian fashion, with garlands of flowers and symbolical
vases, pouring out wine and milk. The finest of these houses are not
ducal palaces, the poorest are never hovels. A real Swiss cottage is as
much adapted to Swiss scenery as the Gothic is suited to the holy and
sublime feelings of devotion; there is a fitness in the subdued color of the
resin from the larch to an association which requires extreme simplicity;
the same cottage painted white would be found offensive and obtruding.
Near by is the barn, a wooden bridge thrown over the entrance, with a
long and gradual ascent, that conducts the wagons loaded with hay to the
loft. Some of these are as generous in size and as well built and equipped
as the best Pennsylvania barns. It may be that the dwelling, barn, and
dairy are all under one roof; but if so, they are separated with a
scrupulous regard to neatness. All wastes are corded and covered up
outside like so many piles of treasure, to renew the soil when summer
comes round. This fumier is the special pride of the peasant, and is
frequently an imposing object, arranged in layers, with the straw rolled
and platted at the sides; it stands proudly by the roadside and often the
ornament of the front yard. Everything is in its place; order reigns by
virtue of some natural law. There is a kind of Robinson Crusoe industry
about their houses and their little properties; they are perpetually
building, repairing, altering, or improving something. Thought and care
are day by day bestowed on every bit of ground to secure a sufficiency of
the things that will be needed in the long winter. Every plant is treated by
itself as though it was a child; every branch pruned, every bed watered,
every gourd trained. From hour to hour the changes in the heavens are
observed and what they import considered; for they may import a great
deal; the time allowed for bringing the little crops to maturity is so short
that the loss of sunshine for a few days may cause anxious thought. It is a
sight which awakens reflection and touches the heart. There is much of
healthy purity prevailing around these cottage homes. Every one,
according to his means, endeavors to make the homestead an ornament
to the grassy and elm-shadowed wayside. The green rock-strewn turf
comes up to the door, and the bench is along the wall outside. Flowers
surround and adorn the windows, the luscious clusters of the vine ripen
above the porch, and the little violet creeps over the stone steps or hangs
in a sunny niche, its flowers gleaming remotely. Nothing can be more
charming than the large carnations which often brighten the dark larch or
pine-wood chalets, with their glossy red blossoms hanging from the
windows and balconies. The pleasant vine-sheltered door seems to
hospitably invite the imagination of the passer-by into the sweet
domestic interior of this cottage life. And there is about the inner life of
these humble homes a something one may almost say of sanctity, which
is not so apparent, at all events on the surface of things, in splendid
mansions. Their splendor is transmuted money, there is no poetry in it; if
hearts are moved by it, it is not in that fashion or to that issue that it
touches them. Quite different with these quiet and secluded homes.
There every object has a pleasing history. There industry has
accumulated its fruits, frugality its comforts, and virtue diffused its
contentment. The care that is taken of it tells you how hard it had been to
come by. You read in it a little tale of the labor, the self-denial expended
on its acquisition; it is a revelation of an inner life which you are the
better for contemplating and for sympathizing with. Shut off from the
world, untainted by luxury, unstained by avarice mid lonely toil,
practising the simple forms of life and faith, maintaining bravely and
contentedly a hard struggle in their Alpine glens, these peasants are on
better terms with life than many people who are regarded to have made a
better bargain. “To watch the corn grow or the blossoms set, to draw hard
breath on the ploughshare or spade,” have attractions for them, not
accounted for in the meagre train of advantages and comforts they bring,
and must be sought in the inspiration of the poet,—
 “Happy the man whose wish and care
A few paternal acres bound;
Content to breathe his native air
On his own ground.

Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread,

Whose flocks supply him with attire;
Whose trees in summer yield him shade,
In winter fire.”

Often the cottage is perched on a mountain crag, and the peasant

must be sleepless and prompt, for he lies down with danger at his door
and must rise to meet it when the moment comes. There is a continual
menace of desolation and ruin:

“No zephyr fondly soothes the mountain’s breast,

But meteors glare and stormy glooms invest.”

At dusk you see a cottage on a shelf of rock, a hut in which the

shepherd churns his milk, a bit of soil in which he grows his herbs, a
patch of grass on which his heifers browse, a simple cross at which his
children pray. At dead of night a tremor passes through the mountain-
side, a slip of earth takes place, or a “thunderbolt of snow” which no one
hears, rings up the heaven. At dawn there is a lonely shelf of rock above,
a desolate wreck of human hopes below, and

“The gentle herd returns at evening close,

Untended from the hills, and white with snows.”87

Some of the Alpine districts are entirely pastoral, where naught save
cow-herd’s horn and cattle-bell is heard. In the spring it is a pretty sight
to see the groups of cows with tinkling bells start for the mountains. The
bells are nearly globular, thin, and light, of different sizes, from one foot
to two inches in diameter; they are various in pitch, all melting into one
general musical effect, forming in right harmonious proportion to
produce the concord of sounds without any clashing tones, just as the
song of many birds does.
 “The tintinnabulation that so musically swells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells.”

The cows are assembled in herds on the village green, and to the call
of the herdsmen they begin their march to the mountain pastures. Each
herd has its queen, who leads the procession. The choice of the queen
depends on her strength and beauty. Great care and expense are incurred
in the ambition to procure one peerless animal for this purpose, and in
order to develop a combative and fearless spirit they are said to be fed on
oats soaked in spirits. The queen wears a finer collar and larger bell than
the others. Proud of her superior strength, she seems, with the calmness
of a settled conviction, to be defying her companions, and to be seeking
—impatient for combat—some antagonist worthy to measure strength
with her. See

“How gracefully yon heifer bears her honors!

Ay! well she knows she’s leader of the herd,
And take it from her, she’d refuse to feed.”

At the end of the herd marches the bull, with his compact body, little
pointed horns, curly hair, and, if he is of a wicked temper, a plate of iron
over his eyes. Then comes the train of dairy-girls and cow-herds, who
tend the cows in the summer pasturages, with wagons loaded with the
implements of their calling, the milking-stool, peculiarly constructed
pails, and the wooden vessels in which milk is carried up and down the
precipices to the chalet.88 When different droves meet, it is almost sure
to happen that the two queens defy each other to single combat. The
herdsmen themselves promote these struggles, and are very proud of the
victory of their own queen cow. The herds begin by browsing on the
grass at the foot of the mountain, and then gradually, as the snow
disappears and is replaced by a fresh carpet of verdure, they go higher,
mounting insensibly till in the month of August they reach the summit of
the Alp. Then in September they descend slowly and by degrees, as they
went up. On their way up the mountain, if the start be made too early in
the spring, the water may be found high, and the herd stops at the edge of
the torrent, afraid to cross. The chief herdsman seeks the parsonage,
knocks at the door, and explains to the curé the critical situation of the
herd, and begs his prayers and blessings.
 “Il faut que vous nous disiez une messe
Pour que nous puissions passer.”

The shepherd leads a more solitary and perilous life in the mountains
than the herdsman, living on polenta and cheese, and for drink, water or
skimmed milk; and a little hay spread on a plank serves for a bed. The
highest and steepest parts of the Alps are apportioned to the grazing of
sheep and goats. Indeed, sometimes the sheep are carried up one by one
on men’s backs, and left there till the end of the summer, when they are
carried down, considerably fattened, in the same fashion. Here the
shepherd passes months, his only companions besides his flock are the
chamois,89 who, in the moonlight, cross the snow-fields, the glacier, or
bound over the crevices and come to pasture on the grassy slopes; and
the snow-partridge, or white hen, and the laemmergeier, or bearded
vulture, a bird whose size surpasses that of the eagle,90 and who circles
around these peaks as he watches for his prey, and, by a sharp blow of
his wing, to precipitate into the chasm any animal he can take unawares
and defenceless. Alas! for the poor shepherd belated in a snow-storm,
seeking vainly to recover the lost track; when the wind seems like some
cruel demon, buffeting, blinding, maddening, as along ways rendered
unfamiliar by the drifts he plunges, helpless, hopeless; fainter and more
faint, until at last there comes the awful moment when he can fight no
longer, and he sinks powerless down, down into the soft and fatal depths;
the drift sweeps over him,—he is lost as surely as “some strong swimmer
in his agony” who sinks in mid-Atlantic among the boiling surge.
When the flock is taken to the Alps, the sheep, instead of being
driven before the shepherd, regularly follow him as he marches
majestically in front,—tall, thin, sunburnt, and dirty,—armed with his
long iron-pointed stick. Behind him the whole mountain is covered with
a moving mass of gray fleeces; other shepherds and Bergamese dogs,
with long woolly hair, the most vigilant of guardians, are scattered at
different points in this “living flood of white wool surging like foaming
waves.” The sheep do not disperse to feed until the chief shepherd,
turning his face round to them, either by a whistle or notes from his pipe,
seems to remind them that it is proper to do so. This leader or captain
literally marches abroad in the morning piping his flocks forth to the
pasture with some love sonnet, and his “fleecy care” seem actually to be
under the influence of his music. It is by whistling that thousands of
sheep are guided, the straying lambs called back, and the dogs sent out
and checked. In September, when the shepherds bring down their flocks
from the mountains, their wives and children, who have remained in the
plain making hay, the harvest, the vintage, and gathering in of other
fruits, go to meet them with songs and waving flags. In the evening the
whole village rejoices, dancing goes on, and it is everybody’s festival:

“At night returning, every labor sped,

He sits him down, the monarch of a shed;
Smiles by his cheerful fire, and round surveys
His children’s looks, that brighten at the blaze;
While his loved partner, boastful of her hoard,
Displays her cleanly platter on the board.”

The shepherds are happy men, content with their lot, loving their free
and nomad mountain life with its long lazy times of rest and its moments
of perilous activity. No simpler, honester, braver hearts are to be found
anywhere.
There is also the female swine-herd, who daily takes to pasture the
pigs and goats. She tends them all day on some stony, irreclaimed waste
land. In the evening when she returns with her four or five score, each
porker knows his own home in the village; some run on in advance of the
herd to get as soon as possible to the supper they know will be ready for
them; others do not separate themselves from the herd till they arrive at
the familiar door. Behind the swine follow the goats with distended
udders,—the poor man’s cow. They, too, disperse themselves in the same
fashion, from the desire to be promptly relieved of their burden. Last of
all come the deliberately-stepping, sober-minded cows. The tinkling of
their bells is heard over the whole of the little village. In a few minutes
the streets are cleared; every man, woman, and child appear to have
followed the animals into the houses to give them their supper or to draw
the milk from them, or, at all events, to bed them for the night. Thus do
these peasants from their earliest years learn to treat their dumb
associates kindly, almost as if they were members of the family, to the
support of which they so largely contribute. They begin and end each
day in company with them, and are perfectly familiar with the ways and
wants of the egotistic pig, of the self-asserting, restless goat, and of the
gentle, patient cow.
 Sound travels far in these mountain solitudes, and the bells of the
flocks may be heard through them night and day. This concert of cow-
bells and of sheep-bells, suddenly heard in solitude and repeated by the
echoes, like a distant and mysterious choir, is one of the features of
Alpine life that most powerfully impress the feelings and take hold of the
imagination.
The mountains’ response to the “alphorn” is most singular and
beautiful. When the tune on the horn is ended, the Alps make, not an
echo, but a reproduction of it, in an improved and heightened character;
they take up, as it were, and chant the air again with infinite sweetness
and a dancing grace that is delightful. They seem to constitute a natural
instrument of music, of which the horn is but the awakening breath. The
writer, on behalf of the New England Conservatory of Music, Boston,
requested of the Swiss government samples of musical instruments of
Swiss origin. In answer an “alphorn,” of ancient form, well constructed
and of superior tone, was furnished, accompanied with the statement
that, after careful investigation, it was believed to be the only musical
instrument of “Swiss origin.” Distance softens the tone of the “alphorn,”
and assimilates it more nearly to the flute-like sweetness of the echo
which seems a sort of fairy answer coming out of some magical hall in
the rock. The tone is powerful, and the middle notes extremely mellow.
The peasants call and answer their companions from peak to peak in
musical notes. The Ranz des Vaches, German Kuhreihen, are a class of
melodies prevailing and peculiar to the herdsmen. There is no particular
air of this name, but nearly every Canton has its own herdsman’s song,
each varying from the others in the notes as well as in the words, and
even in the dialect. There are as many songs and airs which go by this
name as there are valleys in Switzerland. A verse of one, as rendered in
the Canton of Appenzell, runs:

“The cow-herds of the Alps

Arise at an early hour.

CHORUS.

Ha, ah! ha, ah!

Come all of you,
Black and white,
Red and mottled,
 Young and old;
Beneath this oak
I am about to milk you,
Beneath this poplar
I am about to press,
Liauba! Liauba! in order to milk.”

It is a song of melancholy, of the homesickness in which the absent

Swiss sees again, as in a musical vision, the chalet in which he was born,
the mountain where the herds shake their mellow bells as they graze. It
is, however, only in the refrain that is heard the melancholy note, in this
Liauba! Liauba! thrown lingeringly to the winds, and going from echo to
echo, till it expires like a lament, and is lost like a sigh in the infinite
depths of the valley. The herds are said to love and obey its strains.
Without anything striking in the composition, it has a powerful influence
over the Swiss. Its effect on Swiss soldiers absent in foreign service was
so great, giving rise to an irrepressible longing to return to their own
country, that it was forbidden to be played in the Swiss regiments in the
French service, on pain of death. All the music of the mountains is
strange and wild, having most probably received its inspiration from the
grandeur of the natural objects. Most of the sounds partake of the
character of echoes, being high-keyed but false notes, such as the rocks
send back to the valleys when the voice is raised above its natural key in
order that it may reach the caverns and savage recesses of inaccessible
precipices. The Swiss yodel, with its falsetto notes, is heard everywhere.
Nor must the sounds of the landscape be forgotten. With the bleating of
the flocks and the chimes of the cow-bells are mingled the murmuring of
the bees, the running streams, whispering pines, the melancholy voice of
the goat-herder, and the plaintive whistle of the mountain thrush.
Every member of a Swiss family produces his share. The whole
family take up their daily work before sunrise, suspend it only for their
meals, and end it only when the candles are put out at early bedtime. The
feeble efforts of old age and the petty industry of childhood contribute to
the sum of human toil. Children all work with their hands for the
common support, they help the elders in the common family interests as
soon as they can rock a cradle, drive a cow, or sweep a floor; they thus
acquire at home habits of application and industry which stand them in
good stead in after life. The little ones who are taken by their parents to
the field and are too young to work have bells fastened to their belts, not
for amusement, but, as the mothers explain, “when we are in the fields
and the children wander away, thanks to the bells, we can always hear
and find them, and, besides, the sound of the bell drives away the
serpents.”91 Even the infant in its baby-carriage passes the day amid the
scenes of labor in which it will soon be called to join. The women are not
exempt from work, even in the families of very substantial peasant
proprietors. A stranger, seeing the smart country girls at work about the
cows’ food or in the harvest field, perhaps barefooted, is apt to consider
it as a proof of extreme destitution. This is a mistake; it is merely the
custom of the country. A well-to-do peasant’s daughters, who are
stylishly dressed on Sundays, may be seen in the fields during the week.
You see the sturdy sunburnt creatures in petticoats, but otherwise
manlike, toiling side by side with their fathers and brothers in the rudest
work of the farm. They wear a broad-brimmed straw hat, and as the
breeze blows back its breadth of brim, the sunshine constantly adds
depth to the brown glow of their cheeks. In the absence of the men the
women do all the work,—mow the grass, cut the wood, look after the
cattle, make the cheese, bake the bread, and spin the wool. Whether they
are employed in spreading the litter on the floor of the stable, in carrying
the pails foaming with the freshly-drawn milk, or in turning up with long
wooden rakes the newly-mown hay, all their different labors resemble
festivals. From one hill to another, above the bed of the mountain torrent,
they reply to the songs of the young reapers by chanting national airs, it
may be Rufst du, mein Vaterland (“callest thou, my country”)! Their
voices resemble modulated cries emitted by a superabundance of life and
joy; musicians note them down without being able to imitate them; they
are indigenous only on the waters or on the green slopes of the Alps. The
distinction between the sexes as to labor in Switzerland has passed the
temporary stage of evolution. Is it not true everywhere that women are
entering a new era of self-care; that they are undertaking not only office-
work, but professions, and trades, and farm-work? and the change is
going on with great speed. The woman of fifty years ago would not only
have refused to undertake what the woman to-day achieves; she would
have failed in it if she had. The field of housework was in the last
century vastly wider than it is to-day; yet woman filled it. She spun and
wove and knit as well as sewed; and each household was a factory as
well as a home. This sort of work was differentiated by machinery and
taken away from our houses and wives. For a time woman was made
more helpless and dependent than ever before. But a readjustment
appears to be going on. Woman has gone out of the house and followed
work. The sex is developing a robustness and alertness and enterprise
that we had attributed to man alone; it is a revolutionary change in the
mental adaptability, physical endurance, and business capacity of
woman.
The Swiss peasants may not shine by brilliant qualities or seductive
manners, but they are strongly framed, broad-chested, powerful, calm in
countenance, frank and open in expression, with bright eyes, and largely
sculptured features, but of rather heavy gait. The women are active in
figure, with expanded shoulders, supple arms, elastic limbs, blue eyes,
and healthy complexions. Light hair largely predominates, ninety out of
one hundred have hair of the different shades that make auburn, from the
very light-brown to the very fair, but few have red hair, and scarcely any
black. A mixture of manly beauty and feminine modesty is harmoniously
blended in their physiognomy; they appear robust without coarseness;
and their voices are soft and musical, common to dwellers in cold
countries. With these peasants where the homespun is not unknown
every one eats the bread of carefulness. They are frugal and sparing in
food; in the larder there is left little for the mice at night. The diet of rye
bread, milk, cheese, and potatoes is at least wholesome, for they are all
produced at home. They use but little fresh meat, and mostly vegetables
and bread. Of the latter they are the champion consumers, it being
estimated that the yearly bread consumption is as high as three hundred
and six pounds per capita. Meeting children on the country road or
village street, you are sure to find almost every one of them munching
bread, and it will be entirely guiltless of sugar or jam. With the poorer
classes meagre cheese is the staple food. This is made of skimmed milk,
and if not positively bad, this negation of badness is its only virtue. Also
dried or mummy beef is much used. In the high mountain valleys the air
is so dry that for nine months out of the twelve meat has no tendency to
decomposition; availing themselves of this favorable condition, they kill
in the autumn the beef, pork, and game they will require for the ensuing
year. It is slightly salted and hung up to dry; in three or four months’
time it is not only dried, but also cooked, at least the air has given it all
the cooking it will ever receive. It has become as dry and hard as a
board, and internally of the color of an old mahogany table; externally
there is nothing to suggest the idea of meat, and it is undistinguishable
from fragments of the mummies of the sacred bulls taken from the
catacombs at Memphis. Strange as it may appear, when cut across the
grain in shavings no thicker than writing-paper, it is found not badly
flavored, nor unusually repugnant to the process of digestion. What is
lacking in quality of the peasant’s food is made up in quantity or rather
the frequency with which it is partaken of. There is early breakfast, lunch
at nine . ., called from its hour s’nüni, dinner at twelve, lunch again at
four . ., called s’vierli, and supper. It is astonishing to see how much
solid flesh, good blood, and healthy color can be produced by such
inferior and limited diet.
The language of the peasants is characterized by rough gutturals and
the force with which dentals and hissing sounds are pronounced, a sing-
song accent, with numerous diminutions, contractions, and omissions of
the final syllable. There is much of what is designated under the general
name of patois,—a mixture of Celtic, Latin, and Italian words; a
Babylonish dialect,—a parti-colored dress of patched and piebald
languages. This corrupt dialect is very sonorous and very harmonious,
but is the relic of an almost extinguished antiquity. In the Engadine, and
the remote valleys of the Swiss Alps adjoining Italy and the Tyrol, the
peasants use the Romansch and Ladin; the latter is more musical, and to
give an idea of it the following verse from a popular song is transcribed:

“Montagnas, ste bain!

Tu gad e valleda,
Tu fraischa contreda,
Squir eir in mi adsinga,
Montagnas, ste bain!”

“Ye mountains, adieu!

Thou vale with green bowers,
Fresh meadows and flowers,
When from you I must sever,
Ye mountains, adieu!”

The peasants still observe many manners and customs of the olden
times: some the imprints of the early influences of the Burgundians,
others of the Alemanni and the Ostrogoths. The separation by the
mountain ranges of populations near and akin to each other, which led to
the formation of so many dialects, also favored the growth and long
continuance of local customs and traditions, giving to many localities a
strongly marked individuality.
 In one part of the Canton of Ticino a very quaint marriage ceremony
prevails. The bridegroom dresses in his “Sunday best,” and,
accompanied by as many relatives and friends as he can muster for the
fête, goes to claim his bride. Finding the door locked, he demands
admittance; the inmates ask him his business, and in reply he solicits the
hand of the maiden of his choice. If his answer be deemed satisfactory,
he is successively introduced to a number of matrons and old maids,
some, perhaps, deformed and badly goitered. Then he is presented to
some big dolls, all of whom he scornfully rejects amid general
merriment. The bewildered bridegroom, with his impetuosity and temper
sorely tried, is then informed that his lady love is absent, and he is
invited in to see for himself. He rushes in, searches from room to room
until he finds her ready to go forth in the bridal-dress to the church.
These obstacles thrown across the path of accepted suitors, in order to
test their fidelity or to restrain their ardor, are of very ancient origin.
Who has not read of the self-imposed task of Penelope or of Atlanta, in
classic fable; or the story of Brunhilde, in the Norse mythology, when
Gunther’s courage and skill were tested not in vain? In other remote
places the peasants still observe the old German idea of regulating
matrimonial affairs by the Sundays of the month, each Sunday having a
distinct part and significance assigned to it and designated in turn,—
Review Sunday, Decision Sunday, Contract Sunday, Possession Sunday.
On the first the girls appear in dress-parade for the benefit of the young
men with hymeneal hearts. Then they separate, each one to ponder for a
week over the image which caught his or her fancy. On the following
Sunday the enamored swains are permitted to bow to the objects of their
choice; if the bow is returned with a pleasant smile, he feels encouraged;
if his salute is returned coldly, he is correspondingly discouraged. The
third Sunday he is interviewed by the parents of the young lady, and, if
character and conditions are satisfactorily established, the marriage is
arranged to be celebrated on Possession Sunday. In Uri a citizen was not
allowed to marry a stranger without paying to the village a fine of 300
francs. In many places the local spirit is strong as to social relations, and
the youth in one Commune who would court a girl of another district
meets a rude reception from her fellow-villagers. During the fourteenth
century the attendants at a wedding were limited to a very few guests. In
Zurich the most distinguished personage dared not invite more than
twenty mothers of families to the wedding feast, nor have more than two
hautboys, two violins, and two singers. The bridegroom paid for the
wedding dinner, the cost of which was fixed so much per capita for