The plays not only add an undoubted and additional attraction to the quaint and charming town, but also are deserving of the highest praise from an artistic and dramatic point of view. Naturally Meran is over-full at the times of representation, so the wise traveller books his rooms in advance, unless he wishes (as many have done before now) to "sleep at the hotel of the beautiful star," which in plain English means in the open air, and on the ground. We have just mentioned the costumes which appear in the plays. At Meran the old costumes (though alas! they are being slowly but surely superseded) have been preserved to a larger extent than in almost any other place we know in Tyrol. The women's dress is undeniably picturesque, just as it is markedly German in general character. Hats are seldom worn, the hair is plainly and extremely neatly dressed, brushed back off the brow, and secured in a simple knot behind by means of a silver or silver-headed pin. The bodices are of velvet or cloth, of the "corselet" type seen in Switzerland and many parts of Germany as well as in Tyrol; and they are worn over a white chemisette with puffed sleeves, which end just above the elbow and are generally there confined by "ties" of coloured ribbon. The men's costume is scarcely less picturesque, consisting as it does of a high-crowned hat of felt or cloth, bound round with numerous bands of thin red or green cord, the first colour denoting a man is married (a useful danger signal for unwary spinsters!), and the second denoting a bachelor, eligible or otherwise. The jacket is usually of brown or blackish brown cloth; cloth knee breeches (we have seen buckskin on some of the "granfers") with wide red or green braces, and sometimes an embroidered waistcoat, completes the costume. One other feature is almost sure to strike the observer, the white aprons which so many of the men wear when engaged in work. On festive occasions silver belts are worn by some of the men in the surrounding valleys, though we fancy these are considerably less common now than they were even ten years ago.