Bavaria is accordingly the particular home of German satire. The best German comic papers are published in Munich, and the most effective satirist of the present day is a Bavarian of the Bavarians, Ludwig Thoma. He is the son of a Head Forester and was born in 1867 at that Oberammergau where all the inhabitants every ten years dismiss the barber and let their long locks curl about their necks, in order to perform before the assembled multitude their Passion Play, which is pleasing in the sight of God and profitable to them. Thoma not only grew up among peasants; later, as a lawyer in Dachau, he had abundant opportunity to become acquainted with their fondness for litigation, their avarice, and their cunning. Now he is merely an author. In winter he may be seen at Munich in company garb at first performances in the theatres; in summer, at Tegernsee he appears in the midst of his beloved peasants dressed in their costume, homespun jacket and leather breeches. In the same way his writings have two aspects, satire on society and tales of rustic life. In the comic paper _Simplicissimus_ he has often published political verses over the pseudonym Peter Schlemihl; some of his dramas also (_The Medal_, 1901, _The Branch Road_, 1902, _The First-class Compartment_, 1910, _The Baby Farm_, 1913) assail with never-failing pungency the present governmental system in Bavaria; others (_Morality_, 1909, _Lottie's Birthday_, 1911) are directed with more general and less delicate ridicule against all sorts of common place morality and the excrescences of moral reform. Delicious are his stories of the little town, especially about the pranks that give expression to boyish impulses to incommode teachers, stern neighbors, and maiden aunts. These are told in the naïvely impudent language of the school-boy in _Tales of Bad Boys_ (1904) and the continuation of this book, _Aunt Frieda_ (1906). The philistine population of the little town, Bavarian administration of justice, scenes in the Munich street cars, and many another subject of that kind, Thoma humorously treats in _Judge Charlie_ (1900) and _Tales of the Little Town_ (1908), in the broad anecdotal style which he has made his own. His other subject is peasant life. In this too he begins as a satirist, with his collection _Agricola_ (1897); and the manner in which he at first indulges in grotesque exaggeration of popular traits appears best perhaps in the introduction to the book, "adapted from Tacitus": The German plain from the river Danube to the Alps is inhabited by the Baiovarii. I regard them as the original inhabitants of this land, self-raised, as they call themselves in their own tongue. It is difficult for immigrants to mingle with them. It is certain that foreigners could never be confounded with the autochthonous folk.