However prominent lager bier saloons may be in our own large cities, they possess no importance so far as the room in which they are kept is concerned, the very best of them being in the basement of their respective buildings. On the Continent, however, things are managed quite differently, and the drinking-shops where is obtained the popular beverage, vie with the costly temples dedicated to the sale of alcoholic liquors in the United States. In Berlin, we have, perhaps, the very beat specimens of these more costly beer-houses. Such is the continual rivalry among the publicans, that every novelty is sought after to make them attractive, the variety of costume and beauty of the waitresses being the most common feature. One year these useful damsels assume the quaint dresses of some former era, and illustrate the most prominent characters of a popular period. Another time a more fantastic taste will prevail, and they hand around their “pewter pots,” as fays or fairies, the etherealty being imperfectly represented by miniature gauze wings, symbolic pinions, out of all proportion to the broad shoulders to which they are afixed. The Turkish costume was tried, but it did not become popular, “Bloomerism” not being congenial in Berlin or New York. The polka or polish dress was a favorite; so also the Circassian, but it might have been Nubian for anything the public knew to the contrary. Quite recently, a “spirited proprietor,” speculating on the weakness of the Berliners for things military, has put his damsels into uniform, as far as it can be done without dispensing with the petticoat, the police allowing no assumption of male costume by the other sex. There is a hussar, all fur cap, braided jacket, looking what the “daughter of the regiment” might have been, had fate thrown that young lady into the light cavalry instead of the line. A second uniform may pass for nondescript; a third is meant for a cuirassier, with helmet and steel breastplate, the last borrowed from the stores of the property-room, and giving the wearer the appearance of Joan of Arc reduced to the tap-room. For all this, less finery and better beer would often be an infinite improvement.
Our engraving represents a popular establishment of the ambitious kind described above, known as “Corso Halle.” The visitors represent groups of soldiers, students, and other frequenters of the Kneipe, characteristic of the first establishment in the capital of Prussia. How soon will lager bier, the use of which has become enormous in our city, command something of the “Corso Halle”style for its circulation? Such a thing and many of them are bound to come; they are only waiting time.
Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, New York, NY, January 19, 1856
