LIFE IN BERLIN

Clutha Leader, Volume XLII, Issue 90, 19 May 1916, Page 8

LIFE IN BERLIN

A WOMAN'S EXPERIENCES. Interesting tacts are given in the following private letter from a woman in Merlin, which appeared lecently in the London 'Times'.: "On the whole, my experiences in Berlin are almost as interesting as those opening days of the war when T and I were in Paris. Slightly, hut distinctly, increasingly, we are ali beginning to led rather like a bcsiegfvl population-. The'.e i* not the least abatement in the confidence of the Germans that they have won the war, but there is increasing annoyance and irritation because the Allies arc so slow in asking lor peaw. Irritation is also arising- against the women of the lower classes here mi Berlin an 4 iii Other German towns whose ridiculous and despicable disiro for butter, culminating, yoti know, in butter and other riots, is making the official classes thoroughly ashamed of them. In the first few days 'of the war Paris was a city of queue-. | People were wailing in long lines for | passes and permissions of all kinds. Berlin is now a city of queue-. I c: tinted a score of them the other day during a short walk. These queues are o| people waiting lor the microscopic amount of butter and othor commodities allowed to each inhabitant. There is every effort to put the best loot foremost in Germany at all times, but especially now. 'This butter craze, however, seems to be beyond the power of the authorities to suppress. The state of affairs here is difficult to deicribe, for the Germans are adepts at make-believe and are always posing before the world. The shops have been filled- with people, and the people have been buying Christmas gifts. This I know, for I saw them. Wortheim's was crowded. The tableaux which form an attraction of their Christmas bazaar were almost entirely devoted to die war. One will amuse you, as it represents a Zeppelin raid on London. It was most realistically produced. The"e was an exact nt::del of a Zeppelin, with searchlights shining upon 'it from Trafalgar Square. Suddenly the roof of one of the houses opens, and an Englishman with, as usual, side whiskers, long teeth, and check suit, rises slowly and elevates a long telescope from a roof-top. 'Directly he catches sight of the Zeppelin he pops 'down and disappears from view! This clockwork representation was the chief feature of the bazaar, and mu-t have pleased hundreds of thousands of people. Small change is getting very difficult to obtain in shops, and one is now usually given change in postage stamps. Thi. authorities say that owing to the great extension of German territory there is not enough German coinage to go round and that is why we must he content with postage stamps. 'Hut B tells me that itis due to the nickel and copper fani.ne."