The German singing clubs, which are as numerous as the
German 'villages, have resolved to hold an annual " confederate" festival, and the first celebration took place at Dresden on the 22nd ult. The festival lasted three days, and was attended by 20,000 singers, collected from every part of Germany, who avereall entertained by the citizens of Dresden as guests, without payment. The performances took place in a vast music-hall, able to contain 40,000 people, and consisted chiefly of national ballads set, to music by great composers. The singers were of every ‘elass, " nobles, composers, actors, students, teachers, lawyers, doctors, farmers, respectable merchants of all sorts, carpenters, butchers, shoemakers, tailors, and bakers," and the festival, which -could hardly have been organized anywhere but in Germany, passed off amid enthusiastic appreciation. • Love of song, and power of :song, and citizen kindliness Germany has had this long while, what is new is the faculty of organization on a vast scale developed by the gymnasts, singers, and other popular bodies, among a population which after fifty years of effort has not been able to get rid of its political demarcations.
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