Perleberg

Travelling alone onward to Perleberg, I stopped once more for refreshment at a melancholy, dirty place, having one common room, of which the chairs and tables contained as much heavy timber as would build a house.

A Tramp's Wallet stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France William Duthie

The magistrate of Perleberg, after awhile, looked at my passport, and asked “Have you the requisite amount of travelling money to show?”

A Tramp's Wallet stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France William Duthie

In the evening I got to Perleberg, and walking wearily up the old, irregular

A Tramp's Wallet stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France William Duthie

We have passed the frontier town of Perleberg, and press onward in company with a glovemaker of Berlin, last from

A Tramp's Wallet stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France William Duthie

We got on merrily, in spite of our legs, and overtook two very young travellers, whom I recognised as the flutterers before the presence of the magistrate at Perleberg.

A Tramp's Wallet stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France William Duthie

At length, however, I got out of the brick walls of Ludwigslust, and marched forward under a clear sky on the way to Perleberg, my next stage, distant about fifteen English miles.

A Tramp's Wallet stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France William Duthie

The next morning I went out into Perleberg, — a ricketty old place, full of rats and legends.

A Tramp's Wallet stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France William Duthie

But when the war of seventy broke out he returned to the army, with the Perleberg troops, instead of his old regiment, and he now wears the cross.

The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 Various

The good magistrate of Perleberg — the frontier town of Prussia, as you enter from Mecklenburg — had the kindness to affix to my passport a document entitled, “Ordinance concerning the Wandering of Working-men.”

A Tramp's Wallet stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France William Duthie

Schönefeld, twopence halfpenny; a lodging, and board for two nights and a day at Schwerin in a “grand hotel,” but faring with the servants, cost one shilling and ninepence; at Ludwigslust, a comfortable bed after a grand supper with the carpenters at their house of call, was charged one shilling and sevenpence; and at Perleberg, where I lodged superbly, the cost was sixteen silver groschens, or a fraction over one shilling and sixpence.

A Tramp's Wallet stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France William Duthie