I Generally Return Home At Night Pretty Well Fatigued From My Rambles.

There is another great inconvenience at Vienna, resulting from the fluctuation of the current money, and this is that

A stranger, dwelling at an inn, is sure to be disturbed five or six times in the morning, sometimes as early as five or six o'clock, by Jews who rap at his door to enquire if he wants to exchange gold and silver against currency or vice versa. I used to lose all patience at being so disturbed in the morning, and was obliged in self-defence to put an affiche on the door of my room to this effect: "Man kauft und verkauft hier nichts; kein Wechsler darf hereintreten." "Here there is no buying and selling; no money changer is allowed to come in," and I hereby recommend to all strangers not to treat with these Jews, but on their arrival, or at any time they think fit, to go to a banking establishment in this city, where every day after eleven o'clock you can exchange your gold and silver for paper at the just rate of exchange, as published at the Bourse, paying only a very slight premium, and on leaving Vienna to go to the same establishment to change your superfluous Wiener Waehrung for Convenzions Muenze or gold and silver money. For when the Jews tell you the rate of exchange is so and so, you conclude probably your bargain with them, and on enquiring at the Bourse you find that the Jew has made a percentage of six or eight per cent, out of you. Louis d'or are the best foreign coin to bring into the Austrian Dominions. Next to them in utility are the Dutch ducats, or Geharnischte Maenner as they are termed, from the figure of the man in armour upon them. All other corns suffer a loss in proportion. The bankers in Vienna pay the foreign bill of exchange in Convenzions Muenze, which you must afterwards change for Wiener Waehrung, the only current money in Vienna and Austria. But what makes it additionally troublesome is that here in Vienna there are particular payments, which must absolutely be paid in gold or silver or Convenzions Muenze, and not Wiener Waehrung; for instance the franking of foreign letters at the post office, where they do not take the Wiener Waehrung. In vain you may intreat them to take the Wiener Waehrung at any rate they please; no! you must go elsewhere and buy from the first person you can meet with as much gold and silver as is required for the franking of the letters; so bigotted are they in the Austrian dominions to the letter of the law! This happened to me: I wanted to frank three letters for England and I went to the post office with Wiener Waehrung paper, not being aware of this regulation, and I was obliged to return to my Hotel, to lay hold of a Jew, and to buy from him as much gold and silver as was requisite for the franking of the letters.

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