GERMAN SWIMMING SCHOOLS.
The German•Government devotes great attention to the training of the soldiers of the Empire in all kinds of athletic exercises, especi ally in the art of swimming. Government teachers of the art may be numbered by hundreds, and the general public are free to avail themselves of the advantages of the swimming schools and teachers so easy of access, which they do most generally. Hence the Germans may be said to be a nation of swimmers, and her soldiers would probably excel any in the world in swimming. The system taught i& purely scientific, beginning with the swimming girdle with rope, this is adopted until the learner has+acquired confidence, then diving begins, the legs being kept straight and close together, and so on, step by step, as in our own schools, only with more military precision. To show the excellence of German swimmers, I may mention that.
in Sept., 1879, at Bath, Long Island, in the contest for the American championship, a young German named Ernest Von Schoening, for merly a lieutenant in a Prussian regiment, who served on the staff of Prince Frederic Charles during the Franco-German War, 1870-71, won the belt, the ill-fated Captain Webb coming in second. An account of a grand aquatic fete (written by a correspondent of the Jersey and Guernsey _Yews) which was held on the River Spree, near Berlin, cannot fail to be interesting. It is given " Last week we witnessed a spectacle of which there is scarcely an example in modern times, a ' Swimming Masquerade.' This grand spectacle was given by the pupils of the Royal Swimming School, of Berlin, in honor of its twenty-fifth anniversary, which has turned out in that time 23,365 good swimmers. At five o'clock p.m. 1,200 good swimmers, for the most part military men, met in the Barrack Square of the Infantry of the Guard, and proceeded to a row of white tents erected on the banks of the Spree, where they put on their costumes. At eight o'clock the following procession was seen to
swim forward and pass before the admiring gate of inore than 40,000 spectators. First came a large fiat boat, metamorphosed into a large arbor, beautifully decorated, in which were three bands, who executed morceaux of military music ; then a car in the shape of a shell, in which was seated old Father Neptune, the god of the sea, with his hair and beard of reeds, and armed with a trident. This beautiful car was drawn by six dolphins, and surrounded by a band of Nereids and Tritons, the latter with trumpets and clashing cym bals. A large number of Indian musicians followed after, bearing on their heads brilliant plumes of variegated colors, and wearing collars and bracelets of coral and carrying Indian clubs. Then followed Scotchmen in Highland costume, Norwegians, Frenchmen, Spaniards, Italians, Russians and Portuguese, in their national costumes, in the order enumerated ; next came Bacchus, the god of wine, seated upon a gigantic cask, crowned with vine leaves and ivy, brandishing in the air his thyrsus, with which he directed the grotesque evolutions of a hundred Bacchantes, who sported around his throne, following which came the king of frogs, seated on a car of reeds. A gigantic frog represented his majesty, and he was followed by a train of the same species, though less in bulk ; and last, though not least, came 200 jolly Jack Tars, dressed in full man-of-war costume of 'various nationalities, and singing their own national songs. The immense crowds of people who were drawn together to witness this magnificent, though strange, sight, moved about on the banks of the river in carriages, on horseback, or on foot, some sailed about in small boats tastefully adorned with garlands and flowers."