Amusements in Berlin.

Auckland Star, Volume XXI, Issue 259, 1 November 1890, Page 3 (Supplement)

Amusements in Berlin.

The amusements of the Berliners are, besides beer-drinking, which is the first, the last and the mosb persistent and endurably popular, music halls, concerts, promenades in ehe Thiergarten, boating on the Spree, fishing and going bo the races ab Charlottenburg or at the Hcppegarfcen. At these meetings yon see the cream of Berlin elegance, both masculine and feminine. The Charlofctenburg Rennbahn is a vaßb undulating steeplechase course of rather bleak and dismal aspect, wifch a fringe of trees along the very distant horizon. There is a grand stand, a second-class stand, a thirdclass section, and the field, with a big white flag floating in the breeze and bearing in black the inscription 'IV. Platz.' The popular abtendance forms a vasb black crowd; the second-class tribunes swarm with people of the middle classes, while in front of the grand stand, on the lawn, and in the paddock behind there is as brilliant a display of beauty, toilets and uniforms as Berlin can produce. The blue Grefccheneyed Berlin ladies summon up all their wit, grace, and piquancy as they walk up and down with young officers, Whose trailing sabers trace lines and ziggags on the gravel, and whose uniforms, faced with bright scarlet, blue, orange or pale yellow> ara worn with all the angular and rectilinear 4 chic' thab German drilling can teach. These officers aro fine men—tall, straight, well built ; bub one cannot help being struck by the phenomenal thinness of their legs and the prodigious tallness of collars, which thoroughly deserve their monumental name of Sieges Saule. As for the Berlin ladies, they seemed to be in general slender, and totally wanting in thab buxom plumpness, or ' Bollbusigkeit,' to use a familiar term, which characterises thoir greab rivals, the Viennese. Their toilets are Parisian or Viennese in cab, but worn stiffly, conventionally, without stylo. At the races, as in all other instances whero Germans are assembled,, the foreigner ia struck by the silence of the crowd. The only sounds you hear -are the continuous rumbling of tiokeb-stamping ab the ' Totalisator' or 4 Pari Mufcuel' offices ; the crunching of the gravel beneafch the feet of tbe promenaders ; the popping of champagne corks ab the first-class buffet ; the low mnt-, mur of talk arising from groups of fat Ger-j man men who are discussing the ' favour--ifce,' beer-glasa in hand. Bub there is na roar of united throats, such as you wonldj bear on a French racecourse ; no noise of laughter and gayety ; no exchange of clear-; toned greetings; no p6arly notes of feminine cliatterings thab make one turn to sea' if the face of the speaker is as fair as her, voice. The only moment of relative excitement is that when fche winning horse passes, through the wicket that separates the from the paddock, and a few bravos salufca the victor. Ab bhe Charlottenburg races the young officers form the majority of tho gentlemen riders, so that the field weara quite a -military aspect ; and in nine cases out of ten the victor is a martial youth* who responds to the bravos and congratulations of his friends and backers by a formal ealute in correct military style.