for no subject is fully understood and reduced to material for ready use until it has been in some form the theme of frequent familiar discourse.  It is thus turned over,—­looked at on every side,—­the views of men of different tastes, studies, and orders of mind, who have not disqualified themselves for this by being curled into the same nutshell, are called forth,—­and the sparks thus elicited catch on other tinder, which had not been touched by those struck out in solitary study.  It is thus that the thoughts of the learned are familiarized, and their area extended.  It is thus that subjects which sit upon us as holiday-clothes are, in a society of German literati, who are together every day at dinner, or over their coffee after dinner, and every evening over their beer, become to them as their every-day clothing.  I am not of those who deem this result well purchased at the price of the refining influence of the other sex, and the virtual breaking-up of family-life; but if some middle way could be hit upon to secure the two advantages at once, both science and society would be great gainers.

The government has regulated the manufacture of beer, and collected an income-tax upon it, for centuries past; and this is even now one of its most puzzling problems.  It determines the price, both wholesale and retail, at which the beer may be sold.  The calculations are based upon an estimate of the medium amount of fixed capital necessary for the manufacture, then the labor, then the average price of barley and hops at the October and November markets of each year; every item which enters into the manufacture, including interest at five per cent on capital, enters also into the government’s calculation by which it determines its tax and the price of beer.  The price is never increased or diminished by less than half a kreutzer, or two pfennigs, that is, one-third of a cent, per mass.  The fractional parts of this half-kreutzer which may appear in the calculation are divided by a fixed rule between the public and the brewer:  that is, when the fraction is one-fourth of a kreutzer, or less, the brewer must drop it for the public benefit; when more, he may call it a half for his own benefit.  The government tax is nearly one kreutzer per mass, making about six millions of florins.  There is also in several places an additional local beer-tax, amounting to nearly two million florins more.  The population of the kingdom is about five millions.  A considerable portion of this population are wine-growing, and manufacture and drink but little beer.  Ledlmayr, the largest brewer in Munich, made in the year 1856—­the latest statistics published—­one hundred and twenty-nine thousand eimers.  Allowing three hundred working-days to the year, this would be four hundred and thirty eimers, or twenty-seven thousand five hundred and twenty masses, per day, and would pay to the government, at one kreutzer per mass, one hundred and eighty dollars of our money for each of these working-days, or fifty-four