"Though the Coopers' Dance takes place only once in seven years, the Butchers' Leap occurs annually, and always on _Fasching Montag_,--the Monday before Shrove Tuesday. I believe the ceremony is of great importance to the trade of the Butchers; as certain privileges granted to them are annually renewed at this time, and in connection with the Leap. These two ceremonies--of the Coopers' Dance and the Butchers' Leap--are now almost the last remains of the picturesque and quaint customs of old Munich.
"The Butchers commence proceedings by attending High Mass in St. Peter's Church,--close to the Schrannien Platz, or market-place, in which the fountain is situated. It is a desolate-looking church, this St. Peter's, as seen from without,--old, decaying, and ugly; within, tawdry and--though not desolate and decaying--ugly. From staringly white walls frown down on the spectator torture-pictures, alternating with huge gilt images of sentimental saints in clumsy drapery. The altars are masses of golden clouds and golden cherubs.
"Music, as from the orchestra of a theatre rather than from the choir of a church, greeted us as we entered. The Butchers were just passing out. We caught glimpses of scarlet coats; and saw two huge silver flagons, covered with a very panoply of gold and silver medals, borne aloft by pompous officials clothed in scarlet. Having watched the procession--some half-dozen tiny butchers' sons, urchins of five and six years old, with rosy, round faces and chubby hands, mounted on stalwart horses and dressed in little scarlet coats, top-boots, and jaunty green velvet hats--seven butchers' apprentices, the Leapers of the day, also dressed in scarlet and mounted on horseback--the musicians,--the long train of master-butchers and journeymen in long dark cloaks and with huge nosegays in their hats--and the scarlet officials bearing the decorated flagons,--having watched, I say, all these good folk wend their way in long procession up the narrow street leading from the church, and seen them cross the market-place in the direction of the Palace, where they are awaited by the King,--let us look around, and notice the features of the market-place:--for it is, in fact, a quaint old bit of the city, and well worth a glimpse.