In the village of Mittenwald, in the heart of the Bavarian highlands, live the men who manufacture the greater part of the world's supply of violins. Mittenwald has taken the place of Cremona, altho it may take another 100 years before its violins can be mentioned in the same breath with those of the famous Italian town. Of the 1,800 inhabitants of the village, over 800 are exclusively occupied in the manufacture of violins, and the output reaches the incredible figure of 50,000 violins per annum. They are exported to all countries in the world, the better instruments going to England and America. One organization of makers alone exports 15,000. Each family of violin makers has its own particular trade secret, a sort of trick of the trade, handed down from father to son. Outsiders, and still more rival makers, are not permitted in a workshop that is not theirs. The people of Mittenwald have an interesting violin school where the village boys are instructed in the general technical departments of violin building. The course lasts three years and embraces, in addition, the art of drawing, singing, and playing on the violin. In the building of a violin much is left to the individuality of the builders. It is seldom that two violins are exactly alike in every particular. The villagers of Mittenwald are generally of opinion that the varnish with which the instrument is covered is of the first importance, and attribute the fine tone of the violins made by Stradivarius, Guarnerius, and others to a secret of varnish which has evidently been lost forever. Mittenwald uses maple wood for its violins, brought from the distant forests of Dalmatia and Bosnia, and pine wood of a certain quality and resinousness found only in the neighboring forests. The old-looking violins seen in many a music shop window are not infrequently brand-new instruments from Mittenwald. The blackness and shabbiness, the rubs and scratches, the Italian names of makers inside, and the picturesque date—let us say 1743—are often the work of the ingenious fiddle makers of this remote idyllic village in Bavaria. “We must supply the market,” they say, in extenuation of this class of business; “if we do not, some one else will.”—London Leisure Hour.