The amount of thin, cool beer that he--and she, will imbibe in the course of such a al fresco concert ... would amaze the majority of untravelled English men and women... Young girls'... achievements in the direction of putting away the barley -bree were, of course, far surpassed in quantity by those of their male relatives and admirers, listening to music being, perhaps, the thirstiest pastime of the Fatherland ; but I am bound to say that during my many years' residence in Germany and Austria, beer-drinking Empires par excellence, I never saw any person of either sex the worse for liquor at an open-air concert, or was a witness to the least misconduct or breach of social decorum on the part of those present at the hundreds of al fresco musical performances I attended in the respective capitals of the Hohenzollern and Hapsburg realms.