LIFE IN BERLIN.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 16503, 2 August 1919, Page 4

LIFE IN BERLIN.

WAITING FOE PEACE,

HOLIDA Y CROWDS RUT LITTLE TO EAT OR SMOKE. Thera is not much that is exotic to Teutonic eyes in a Teutonic city (writes a special correspondent of the Daily News from Berlin on May 29 last), 'to those who have been over-nourished on the idea, that we arc in every way different from the Germans, it is the likenesses that astonish. When 1 heard the c-ywsjnst, now calling to one another in too Tiorgartcn, 'I could .scarcely help .saying: ‘'Why, they' talk English.” Von can seq in Berlin your very own mother rather more pinched than she ever was at home, standing timid on the curb, waiting for a chance to cross the street. In a small stationer’s shop, quite near the splendid windows by Potsdam I’laco, I lonud a delightfully old-fashion-ed proprietress, who said “Goti, sci dank,” quite twenty times while I was making my purchase. It was ‘‘Gott sci dank.” when she got the parcel down: again when the suing came undone; again when I found a (ire-mark note; again when she produced the right change, and 1 she was instructing an as-si-tant and receiving congratulations from other customers at the same time. The congratulations wine on the finding or the good lady's dog which had been missing four days, and was just home again, ft was a big thin hoi’mj;, black and tan. hut bigger than the dogs 1 know of that colour in England. People came in and talked to the dog itself, shaking hands with it and asking it about its wonderful adventure ami the lean time it must have had. They all mentioned the subject of food to it,' and it declared that its recent misery was beyond description by howling loudly whenever the subject was named. Thou it retired lo its well-known corner, where alone its long limbs conk! be out of tho traffic of the shop, nr, plainly said; ■‘Bui now it's all over. Gott sci dank.” RACING IX "WILHELM STRASSE. On the stops of the Berlin Foreign Office. -My conversation with an official i mot as I was coming out is interrupted by piercing motor alarms and the rattle of two cars passing at full speed. One is a light car, the other n trolley, and each is occupied by American soldiers, thinking of nothing hut who will get first into Enter den Linden. The German secretary (urns to me in amazement. ‘‘Racing in Wilhelm Strassc,” he says. ‘-What people these ore, and how wonderful that it should he allowed.” Short shrift would anyone have who raced thus down Whitehall, and short shrift would any German have who so raced here. The licence given by Berlin to its guests is truly a wonderful thing.

An apparently empty tobacco shop and a patient queue of some forty people waiting for the elm nee to buy ono cigar apiece. This nation of heavy smokers is on very short tobacco rations just now, while Englishmen can buy in the streets each his favourite cigarette, for which ho might have to look far in London or even Bristol. Nobody knov. - .- hr.w they come here. Disabled’ soldiers offer them all along the pavement, scarcely two packets of tho same brand, so that my friend, who smokes only Two Pawns, has to go a long way before he amasses half a dozen packets. He pays an average of five marks for each ten cigarettes. Tho price is apparently beyond the ordinary German, Iml an Englishman ‘"divides hy three” and calks it Is 4d, because ho buys his marks ;u that rate. OFF FOR. A REAL PICNIC. Any railway station on Sunday, Crowds of Berliners going out to the beautiful Grunewald or elsewhere for a real picnic. Fritz nearly always puts on kniekor-bockcrs and stockings for this outing, though it is probably a less comfortable dress than trousers. Gretchen has the glad neck that everybody likes nowadays, though hers is a good square foot of pure chest. Often they both wear sandals, and often both arc hatless. There are, however, many and diverse types on tho platform. The morning coat and straw hat is frequent, so is the semi-Norfolk with billycock. Most cheering of all are wandervogels packed up with utensils, as though for a week’s camping-out, yet I believe fchoy are only elf lor a day’s rehearsal in preparation for the summer holiday in tho Black Forest. Tho last time I saw them was on Dartmoor, ami in those days these German Boy Scouts wove deservedly very popular there. At any cafe, on any day, but especially on Sunday. Always something to drink can bo had here, but never anything to eat. Nine times out of ten that suits us very well hut ac midday dozens of people. chiefly little families, bring their little parcels of solid nourishment, v. Lich they take with their beef or fwheatenl coffoo. Nor can you tell who v ill have beer and who coffee. Next to my table is a little party of schoolgirls with their teachers. The girls arc enjoying (1 eraselves immensely, laughing at everything and at nothing: The only thing that they take quite ns a matter of course is the tall glasses of beer, from which they take deep gulps to wash down their butterbrot. They call it Imtterbrot because they are too honest to call it sandwiches. Tho bread is tl ere, hut no meat, and usually no butter. Sometimes it is cake, because you can get that without broad tickets, though yon have to pay about eight marks' a pound for it. If one cats a piece of bread about as big as an Abomothy that is one-fifth of the day’s ration. I think I should bo afraid to laugh, lest it made mo too hungry. At 2 in tho afternoon tho streets are, empty. Only Aamodeus can show you tho picture of thousands of horizontal Berliners indulging in the purely postwar habit of the siesta. The Berliner 'must have his evening, and his metjjls are not enough to keep him going all day. So he makes two short days of one long one. Even tho workman has to bo given the chance of a recuperative rest between morning and afternoon tasks. Ho will give it up for ono thing—in order to demonstrate for peace at any price.