BERLIN IN WAR TIME.

Manawatu Times, Volume XL, Issue 13209, 28 September 1915, Page 7

BERLIN IN WAR TIME.

Vorwaerts, the leading Socialist newspaper in Germany, publishes an article on Berlin Streets in War Time, in which attention is drawn to the military life in the streets. Even in times of peace military men were numerous in the thoroughfares of Berlin, but now the majority of the males seen in the streets are in uniform. They are mostly wounded men on furlough. Among them are to be seen many boyish faces and many grev beards. The father walks with his son, botii in uniforms, both wounded. The wounded usually move about in groups, with Eed Cross sisters, the weaker generally leaning on a sister. A frequent sight is the father of a family home on furlough with his wife and children around liim.

Business is toned with the colours of war. From cinemas to chocolate shops —it is all war, war, war. Vorwaerts draws attention to the number of shops which have been closed owing to the failure of their tenants to make both ends meet. It seems that in most cases the stocks remain inside untouched, as the creditors can do nothing with them. Certain trades (Vorwaerts does not specify them all) have suffered more severely than others. One business, however, is mentioned —the Wirtschaft, the place which combines the public house and restaurant, and which in ordinary times is one of the most profitable of businesses. These establishments in vast numbers have closed their doors, says Vorwaerts, the bars are cobwebbed, the dusty glasses stand in the corners with dead flies in them. The landlords have all gone to the war, their guests, too. No longer the great tankards of foaming beer. The loud "Prosits" have given place a strange silence, dumb and deserted are the places of mirth, and great placards on the dirty windows announce that a restaurant is to let.

Vorwaerts also notices as a sign of the times the appearance of woman in numerous callings tor which a year ago she was regarded as wholly unsuitable. What man in the German Empire a year ago could have ed woman tram or omnibus conductors. ticket collectors, letter carriers, doorkeepers, lift attendants? Tn the factories women are now doing thr> work which in pre-war days no responsible person would have entrusted to a woman.

The Socialist newspaper points out that the war is bringing up problems of so difficult a character that no one ventures to offer any solution to them. The war has brought it home to Germans a s nothing has ever done, that change and decay are the phenomena of life most in evidence, and that the old inherited traditions are being swept aside. The vibrations of this awful drama of war, says Vorwaerts, "will shake our daily lifo to its foundations.