556
EXPOSITION AT VIENNA.
city. Wages among these last two classes are much lower than with us. The women engaged in sweeping the streets earn forty cents per day; the men about eighty cents. Good workmen get from $1 to $1 50, with higher wages where special artistic training is required. Policemen in the city receive $1; those at the "Exposition” (a picked body of men) receive $2. The extravagantly high rents in Vienna eat up the earnings of the lower classes, and leave them very little surplus money. They do not have adequate incentives to thrift and frugality, while a large proportion of them are restricted to black bread and beer.
Among the people of wealth, of course, food is varied and abundant. Beer is drank by all. But wine, of the finer qualities, is more commonly found on their tables, and partaken of by the whole family. Among the more dissipated young men of this class brandy and strong liquors are somewhat used; but society frowns upon excess, and intoxication is rare.
In the middle class the use of brandy, rum and spirit is not common. Light wines and beer are the staple drinks. At dinner a bottle of light wine, containing a very small per cent, of alcohol, is usually taken, while at lunch and often during the day, a glass of beer is relied upon to cool and comfort the partaker.
Among the third rank of people beer is the common beverage. At all hours of the day men turn aside from their work for a glass. Women pass you on the streets with mugs or pitchers of the foaming drink. With a glass or two of beer, and a piece of bread, the appetite is satisfied and business resumed.
With the very lowest classes the use of wine and beer is restricted. Wages are so small that even the cheap food and clothing exhaust nearly all they can earn. Consequently the very poor are wont to use whiskey and rum in small quantities.
The most striking feature of Vienna life is the open and universal use of wine and beer, and the almost total absence of intoxication on the streets and in public places. The drinking habits of the Viennese are very closely related to the manner of life, the wages for work, and the food of