The notions of the lower classes with regard to dress have doubtless a good deal to do with their health.  The same notions prevail in most parts of Germany, but are especially hurtful in a climate so severe and variable as that of Munich.  Thus, it is considered improper for a servant-girl to wear a hat or a bonnet in the street when she is about the business of her calling.  On Sundays and holidays, indeed, or when she has an outing in the afternoon, she may adorn herself with such an appendage; but to go to market or to the grocer’s with her head covered would be a piece of presumption which would at once expose her to ridicule from all the members of her class.  Hence, all day and every day women and girls may be seen in the streets without any covering on the head, though, by way of compensation, most of them are obliged to go about a good share of the time with their faces bound up on account of swelled jaws and tonsils, the natural result of such unnatural exposure.  Occasionally, in the coldest weather some few, more prudent than the others, wear a hood or a small shawl over the head, but these cases are rare, and excepting in the depth of winter such a precaution is not thought of, although the gusty, chilly weather of spring and autumn and the frequent cold blasts that occur in summer are quite as dangerous, if not prepared for, as are the winter storms.  As a general thing, a servant goes out on errands in precisely the same clothes that she wears in the kitchen, and paddles about in rain and snow in the thin, low house-shoes which, on account of their cheapness, are the favorite foot-gear of the ordinary Munich women.

Children, too, are sent to school in the same unprotected manner:  one may meet them any day trooping through the streets, their bare heads shining in the sun or glistening in the rain, according as the fickle sky may smile or weep; and babies are drawn about in the open air, two, and sometimes three of them, crowded into a small carriage and sweltering under a feather bed which covers them to their chins, and yet with their bald pates exposed to all the winds that blow.  The ignorant recklessness with which the changes of temperature are met is well exemplified in the attire of little girls and young maidens who participate in the religious processions which take place so frequently in Munich, especially during the spring and early summer.  On such occasions, although the weather may be so chilly that the bystanders are wrapped up to their eyes in shawls and cloaks, these young creatures appear clad in thin white muslin dresses, with necks and arms bare, and with no covering upon the head more substantial than a wreath of flowers or a gauze veil:  and in this condition they march through the wet and windy streets, and settle down finally to a prolonged service in a church as cold and damp as a cellar.