As a Sunday meal, the potato soup is sometimes enriched with rice, or replaced with sauerkraut and mashed potatoes; vegetables such as beans, carrots, etc., are very rare. [ . . . ]
Lunch is usually brought by the wife to those working on the road. [ . . . ]
N.’s handwriting is comparatively very tidy, his wife, on the other hand, has forgotten almost all of the writing skills she had acquired. N. is Roman Catholic but it does not appear that his family pays much attention to religious customs. The husband attends church only irregularly, his wife only a few times a year; the housework, she says, keeps her too busy. [ . . . ]
N. only smokes cigars on Sundays but no more than one; during the week he sticks to his old habit of chewing tobacco; his sons have not yet acquired the habit of smoking.
Alcoholic drinks are never consumed at home by the family and otherwise only in very modest amounts; N. claims that he only started having the glass of brandy listed in the budget since he took up work on the road. However, occasionally he goes to the pub on weekday nights, especially in the winter, but, as he claims, only for conversation and without consuming anything. [ . . . ]
On Sundays and holidays, N. is usually preoccupied with domestic work in the morning. In the afternoon he takes a nap or a walk with an old friend; afterwards he goes to the pub, where he stays until the evening, frequently playing “Solo,” one penny a game. During this time, his wife remains at home; barely more often than twice a year does she partake in his holiday leisure pursuits. [ . . . ]
Source: Gottlob Schnapper-Arndt, 5 Dorfgemeinden auf dem Hohen Taunus [5 Village Communities in the High Taunus]. Leipzig, 1883, pp. 245-52.
Original German text reprinted in Gerhard A. Ritter and Jürgen Kocka, eds., Deutsche Sozialgeschichte 1870-1914. Dokumente und Skizzen [German Social History 1870-1914. Documents and Sketches], 3rd ed. Munich: C.H. Beck, 1982, pp. 264-67.
Translation: Erwin Fink
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