haha good one 
Chess Types
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Apr 19, 2012
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#3
The song mentioned is "Es steht ein Wirtshaus an der Lahn". Apart from a few original and rather "tame" verses dating back to the 17th century, there exist a gazillion of lewd verses about the famous landlady of that pub:
http://media01.myheimat.de/2008/12/17/331696_web.jpg
Most of the lewd verses were probably created by students of the university of Marburg/Lahn during the 19th century. The pub was demolished in 1970 and replaced by this building, called the "Affenfelsen":
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/74/Affenfelsen.Marburg.jpg
I actually happened to live there for a while in 1984 ...
In my meanderings I came across this delighful story submitted to "Checkmate" magazine in Oct. 1903.
[all spelling is as I found it]
Chess Types.
By Franz Fridberg, in Schachfreund.
Perhaps no occupation absorbs the mind as chess does, although it is only a game. The mind frees itself, so to speak, from the body, which sinks back to its primitive form. I have known some very handsome men who as soon as they sat down to play chess looked like apes. Take for example my highly esteemed Viktor, with whom I have often had the pleasure of playing chess at the Café Kaiserhof. Truly a handsome man, with beautiful features, a finely chiseled profile, all the attractions of a true cavalier. Hardly does he sit down at a chessboard when a cloud of silliness collects about his head, and ever grows thicker and thicker till at last he looks like a man possessed of malignant paresis.
Chess destroys character also. All the bad qualities slumbering in man's nature, which a loving mother strives to conceal in her child in the cradle, come to light at chess in their crass nakedness. I see it every day in two respectable gentlemen like the painter, M______ and the representative C_____ .
It is a real pleasure to converse with these two so well educated men, a true joy to associate with them. They begin a game of chess together, and— presto—it is all gone. The excellent gentlemen become suddenly two Bengal tigers. To be sure they do not say much, but with red faces they sit opposite each other, hatred, thirst for revenge, bloodthirstiness and covetousness expressed in their countenances. They do not play for a stake, yet mourn each lost game more than the death of a dear relative.
The hypnotist has his medium stare at a prism to make him will-less. In chess there is no need of a prism. After an enthusiastic chessplayer has stared at the board for half an hour, he is in a condition of absolute unconsciousness, wax in the hands of a Kiebitz. You can then express to him the worst thought and be sure that he will not only quickly say it after you, but repeat it hundreds of times. Some years ago the Governor of a Prussian province used to come every afternoon for a game of chess to the Café Kaiserhof. One day two Kiebitzers sat down beside him. After a while one of them began to hum the naughty student song about the landlady on the Lahn. The other at once joined in. The Governor at first paid no attention to it, but soon he began to keep time to it with his head; then he sang a word here and there, growing ever louder, till he finally drowned out both of them with his heavy bass. The wicked Kiebitzers did not let this chance go by, for at a signal by the first they stopped, and then you could have the rare privilege of hearing his excellency, the first person of a whole land, a lovable old gentleman, singing in a public place a ditty of the lowest kind. Suddenly he stopped, looked around in a frightened way, played the game through, went away and never came back again.
Once I saw Heinrich Grünfeld play chess in the Café Kaiserhof—once only, and that was a joke. Of course everything that Grünfeld says and does has a joke behind it. I was playing a game with the impresario Weiser. Meanwhile Grünfeld came in, sat down beside me and looked on with apparent interest. After the end of the game Weiser asked him if he would like to play a game with him. "With pleasure, dear Weiser," he answered; "just set up my men, too, and meanwhile I will drink my coffee." I knew what that meant and was expectant. After he had drunk his coffee he sat down, with an important expression. Weiser made the first move. Grünfeld began to ponder.
"What! are you thinking already?" cried Weiser impatiently.
"Yes, yes, that's easily said." He took one piece, put it back, shook his head, took hold of another, a third, and then he seized the white bishop and put it in the middle of the board on a black square.
"What are you doing there" cried Weiser excitedly — "are you crazy?"
Heinrich, with a bonhomnie smile:
"Dear friend, I really don't know how to play chess."
"Well, why did you sit down, then?"
"You merely asked me if I would like to play, not if I could."
[note: Heinrich Grünfeld, the violinist is no relation to Ernst Grünfeld, the chess master]