From the adjoining room rose sounds of untrained oratory, mingled with the dull clinking of beer-mugs. The innkeeper and his family had by no means abandoned their service of supply; they had merely laid out a new line of communication between spigots and consumers. Gradually the orderly discussion became a dispute, then an uproar in which a score of raucous voices joined. I looked questioningly at my companion. “They are electing a new Bürgemeister,” he explained, interrupting a question he was asking about the “peasants” of America. “It is always a fight between the _Bürger_ and the _Arbeiter_—the citizens and the workers—in which the workers always win in the end.” One could easily surmise in which class he claimed membership by the scornful tone in which he pronounced the word “citizen.” “I live in another town,” he added, when I expressed surprise that he remained with me in the unlighted _Gastzimmer_ instead of joining his fellows. I slipped out into the hallway and glanced in upon the disputants. A powerful young peasant stood in an open space between the tables, waving his beer-mug over his head with a gesture worthy of the Latin race, at the same time shouting some tirade against the “citizens.” An older man, somewhat better dressed, pounded the table with his empty glass and bellowed repeatedly: “_Na, da’ is’ giene Wahrhied! Da’ is’ giene Wahrhied, na!_” The other twoscore electors sipped their beer placidly and added new clouds to the blue haze of tobacco smoke that already half hid the gathering, only now and then adding their voices to the dispute. It was evident that the youthful _Arbeiter_ had the great majority with him. As I turned away, my eyes caught a detail of the election that had so far escaped my attention. In a corner of the hallway, huddled closely together, stood a score or more of women, dressed in the gloomy all-black of church service, peering curiously into the room where their husbands smoked, drank, and disputed, and preserving the most absolute silence. I mentioned the detail to my companion of the guest-room, recalling frequent assertions by Germans in a position to know that the women had been quick to take advantage of the granting of equal suffrage to both sexes by the new “republican” government. “Certainly,” he replied, “they have the _right_ to vote, but the German _Frau_ has not lost her character. She is still satisfied to let her man speak for her. Oh yes, to be sure, in the large cities there are women who insist on voting for themselves. But then, in the cities there are women who insist on smoking cigarettes!” In contrast with this conservative, rural viewpoint I have been assured by persons worthy of credence that in the more populous centers some 80 per cent. of the women flocked to the polls for the first election in which suffrage was granted them.