GERMANY AND THE GERMANS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3085, 30 April 1913, Page 75

GERMANY AND THE GERMANS.

FROM AX A MEEK .) > '“iM' 1 T VIEW. By Pxuce Coli.ijjji, in .‘ier.k-.w;k -Magazine. From the fields of Silesia, where licet industry is possible only bee.a: there are hundreds of bare-legged gi;ie and women to single the beets, a p not possible by machinery, at a wage oi from 25 to 30 cents a day, to these German paintings, with their illustrations of the spiritual' and moral attitude of the German man toward the German woman, one sees everywhere and among practically all classes an attitude of condescension toward women among the polite and polished ; an attitude of carelessness bordering on contempt among the rude. Their attitude is like that of the Jews who cry in their synagogues, “Thank God for not having made me a woman!” One can judge, not incorrectly, of tho status of women in a country by tho manners and habits of the men entirely dissociated from their relations to women, when one secs men equipped with small mirrors and small brushes and combs, which they use in all sorts of public places, even in tire streets, in the street cars, in omnibuses, and in the theatres; when one opens thy door to a knock and finds a gentleman, m small mirror in one hand and a tiny brush in the other, preparing himself for his entrance into your hotel sitting room, you are bound to tliink that these persons are in the childhood days of personal hygiene, as it cannot bo denied that they are, but also that their women folk must be still in the Eryop.s age of social sophistication not to put a stop to such bucolic methods of grooming. Even though the Eryops is a gigantic tadpole, a hundred times older than tho oldest remains of man, this is hardly an exaggeration. In no other country in the cultured group of nations is the animal man so naively vain, so deliciously selfconscious, so untrained in the ways of the polite world, sn serenely oblivions, not merely of the rights of women, but of the simple courtesy of the strong to the weak. It is the only country I have visited where the hands of the men are better cared for than the hands of the women ; and this is not a pleasant commentary upon tlie question of who does the rough work and who has leisure for a meticulous toilet. In tho streets and public conveyances of the cities, in the beer-gardens and restaurants in the country, in the summer and winter resorts from the Baltic to the Black Forest, from the Bhino to Bohemia, it is ever the same. They seat themselves at table first and have their nankins hanging below their Adam’s apples before their women are in their chairs; hundreds of times have I seen their women arrive at table after they were seated, not a dozen times have I seen their masters rise to receive them; their preference for the inside of a sidewalk is practically universal; even officers in uniform—but this is of rare occurrence—will take their places in a railway carriage all smoking where two ladies are sitting, and wait till requested before throwing their cigars away —

and what cigars ! —and then by smiles and innuendoes make the ladies so uncomfortable that they are driven from the carriage. The inconvenience and discomfort of going about alone, for ladies in Germany, I have heard not from a dozen, but in a chorus from German ladies themselves I am reciting no grievances of my compatriots, for I have seen next to nothing of Americans for a year or more, and 1 have no personal complaints, for these soft adventurers scent danger quickly, and give the masters of the world, whether male or female, a wide berth. These gross manners are the result of two factors in German life tliat it is well to keep in mind. They are a poor people, only just emerging from poverty, slavery, and disaster; poor - not only in possessions, but poor in the experience of how to use them. - They do not know how to use their freedom. They are as awkward in this new world of theirs of greater wealth and opportunity as unyoked oxen that have strayed into city streets. The abject deference of the women, who know nothing better than these parochial masters, adds to their sense of their own importance. It is largely the women themselves who make their men insupportable. The other factor is the rigid caste system of their social habits. There is no association between the officers, the nobility, the officials, the cultured classes, and the middle and lower classes. The public schools and universities are earn-ing-shops ; they do not train youths in character, manners, or in the ways of the world, They do not play together, or work together, or amuse themselves together. The creeds and codes, habits and manners of the better classes are, therefore, not allowed to percolate and permeate those less experienced. In Homburg one day I saw a tall, finelooking, elderly man step aside and off the sidewalk to let two ladies pass. It was for Germany a noticeable act. He turned out to be a famous general then in waiting upon the Emperor. -There are not a few such courtly gentlemen in Germany, not a few whose knightlincss compares with that of any gentleman in the world. Alas for the great bulk of the Germans, they never come into contact with them; their example is lost, their leaven of high breeding and courtesy does not lighten the bourgeois loaf! In America and in England we are all threading our way in and and out among all classes. We are much more democratic. Men of everv class are in contact with men of every other; we play together and work together, and consequently the level of manners and habits is higher. This state of things is less marked in South Germany than in Prussia, but is more or less true everywhere. But how can this be possible, I hear it replied, in that land where every officer clacks his heels together with a report like an exploding torpedo, ducks his head from his rigid vertebra, and then bends to kiss the lady’s hand ; and where every civilian of any standing doe* the same? ! am uni writing of the nobility and of ■ eerie- of officers in this connection. No e; i ■> are black sheep among them, te.i- ■: have not met them. Of the res of them whom I have met, whom ! have ridden with, dined with, romped with, drunk with, travelled with. I have only to say that they arc as courteous, as unwilling to offend, pr to take advantage, as are brave men in other countries I know. I am writing of the average man and woman, of those who make up the bulk of every population, or those npon whom it depends whether a national life is healthy or otherwise. The very stiffness of these mannerisms, the clacking of heels, the ducking of heads, the kissing of hands, the countless grave formalities among the men themselves are all indicative of social weakness. They are afraid to walk without the crutches of certain formulae, of certain hard-and-fast rules, of certain laws that they worship and fall down before. Slavery is still upon them. Escaned from a bodily master thev flv to the refuge 'of a moral and spiritual one. These formalities are prescribed forms which they wear as thev wear uniforms ; they are not the result of innate consideration. Uniform-wearing is a passion among the Germans, and may he included as still another indication of the universal desire to take refuge behind forms and laws and fixed customs, the universal desire to shrink from depending noon tlieiown judgment and initiative. They will not even bow nr kiss a lady’s hand without a prescription from a social phvsician whom they trust. It pleases the foreigners to laugh and sometimes to ieer at the universal sign of “ Verboten ” (forbidden) seen all over Germany. They look upon it as the seal of an autocratic and bureaucratic' government. It is nothing of the kind. The army, the bureaucracy, the autocratic Kaiser at the helm, and the landscape bestrewn with “ Verboten ” and “ Nicbt gestattet ” (not allowed), these are necessities in the cash of these people. They do not know instinctively, or bv training or experience, where to expectorate and where not lo; where to smoke and where not to; when to stare and when not to; when to be dignified and when to laugh : and, least of all. bow to take a ioke: bow. when, or bow much to eat. drink, or bathe, or bow to dress properly and appropriately. The Emperor is almost the only man in Germany who knows what chaff is and when to use it. The more you know them, the longer von live among them, the less you laugh at “Verboten.” The trouble is not that there are too many, but that there are not enough ! When you see in flarin® 1 letters in the street oars. “In alighting. -j the left hand on the left-hand rail.” when ’.Du read on the bill-of-fare in the dining oar brief instructions underlined as to how to pour out your wine so that you will not spill it on the table-

| cloth ; when you see the list of from 10 to 15 rules for passengers in railway car* riages; when you see everywhere where crowds go and come. “ Keep to the right ”; when you see hanging on the railings of the canals that flow through Berlin a lifebuoy, and hanging over it full instructions with diagrams for the rescue of the drowning; when you see over a post-box, “ Aufschrift und Marko nicht vergessen ”, (do not forget to stamp and address your envelope); when you see in the church entrances a tray with water and sal volatile, and the countless other directions and remedies and preventives on every hand, you shrug your Saxon shoulders and smile pityingly, if you do not stand and stare and then laugh out-, right, as I was fool enough to do at first. But you soon recover from this superficial view of matters Teutonic. In ona cab I rode in I was cautioned not to expectorate, not to put my feet on the cushions, not to tap on the glass with stick or umbrella, not to open the windows, but to ask the driver to do it. and not to open the door till the auto-taxi stopped; one hardly lias time to learn their rules before the journey is over. In the days when everybody rode a bicycle, each rider was obliged to pass an examination in proficiency, paid a small tax, and was given a number arid license. Women who persisted in wearing dangerous hat pins have been ejected from public vehicles. In a carriage' on the Bavarian railroad a husband who kissed and petted his tired wife was comClained of by a fellow passenger. The usband was tried, judged guilty, and fined. There was no question but that the woman was his wife; thus there is no loophole left for the legally curious, and thousands of male Germans hug and kisa one another on railway station platforms who surely ought to be fined and imprisoned or deported or hanged! Shortly after leaving Germany I returned from al few weeks’ shooting in Scotland. We bundled out of the train on to the station platform in London. Dogs, gun-cases, cartridge-boxes, men and maid servants, trunks, bags, baskets, bunches of grouse, and the passengers seemed in a chaotic huddle of confusion. In Germany at least 20 policemen would have been needed to disentangle us. I was st> torpid from having been long Teutonically cared for that I looked on momentarily paralysed. There was no shouting, not a harsh word that I heard ; and an I was almost the last to get away, I can vouch for it that in 10 minutes each had his own and was off. I had forgotten that such things could be done. I had been so long steeped in enforced orderliness that I had forgotten that real orderliness is only born of individual selfcontrol. I forgot that I was back among the free spirits who govern a quarter of the habitable globe and who are making America; and even if here and there ona or more —and they are often recentlyarrived immigrants —are intoxicated by freedom and shoot or steal like drunken men, I realised that I am still an Occidental barbarism, thank God, preferring liberty, even though it is punctuated now and then with shots and screams and thefts, to official guardianship, even | though f am thus saved the shooting, the savvy ruing, and the thieving. Their wV.eAe history, from Charlemagne down until the last 50 yea'nr, W a seres of going to pieces the moment the s’, rung hand of authority is taken away from them. The German, and especial!-, the Prussian, policeman has become the greatest official busybody in the world. No German’s house is his castle. Tho policeman enters at will and, backed by, tire authorities, questions the householder about his religion, his servants, the attendance of his children at school, the status of tire guests staying in his house, and about many other matters besides. If one of your children, by reason of illhealth, is taught at home, the authorities demand the right to send an inspector every six months to examine him or her, to be sure that the child is properly taught. The policeman is in .attendance on the platform at every public meeting armed with authority to close the meeting if either speeches or discussion seem to him unpatriotic, unlawful, or strife-breed-ing. Professors, pastors, teachers are all muzzled by the State, and must preach and teach the State orthodoxy or go! A young professor of political economy in Berlin only lately was warned and has become strangely silent since. The de-Germanising of the German abroad is in line with this, and a constant source of annoyance to the powers that be. Budapest was founded by Germans in 1241, and now not one-tenth of the population is German. As the Franks became French, as the Long Beards became Italians, so the Germans become Americans in America, English in England, Austrian and Bohemian in Austria and Bohemia. It has been a problem to prevent their becoming Poles where the State has settled Germans for the distinct purpose of ousting the Poles. In China, in South America, and even in Sumatra I have heard German officials tell with indignation of how their compatriots rapidly took the local colour, and lost their German habits and customs and point of view. One of the half dozen host-known bankers in Berlin has lamented to me that ho must change his people in South America every few years, as they soon go to pieces there. Army officers came home from China indignant to find their compatriots there speaking English and unwilling even to speak German. Even as long ago as the time of the Thirty lears’

War a forgotten chronicler, Adam Junghaus von dcr Ohritz, writes: —‘‘Further, it is a misfortune to the Germans that they take to imitating like monkeys and fools. As soon as they come among other soldiers, they must have Spanish or other outlandish clothes. If they could babble foreign languages a little, they would associate themselves with Spaniards and Italians.”