People of all sorts and conditions and at such an early hour too....
J P Smiles
Young girl documenting a family trip to Switzerland
What crowds at the station – Peasant women with their silver chains – people of all sorts + conditions and at such an early hour too - the reason for this was the fête at Berne, to which everybody seemed to be dutifully going to.
The men had little sheets of pink paper in their hats, which I suppose were accounts of the doings of the day, which were to be, or else tickets for the great play. The crowd was so great that two trains had to be run instead of one & later on this caused a serious accident.
At Berne station there were grand decorations, the station was draped in red & white, & there were festoons & all sorts of grand things there.
But the grandeur didn’t stop there, it extended all over the town.We took a conveyance & drove around to see the decorations. […] Oh! – when in Berne we saw the bears of Berne in their homes, and above the door of their dens was written ‘The Oldest Inhabitants of Berne’ – as a bear is the crest of Berne.
Listen to her words
