In Berlin, when you arrive at a railway-station, an official gives you a huge brass plate with a number of a cab on it, and you can’t have a cab without you have the brass plate. It is an excellent idea if you can get a porter to carry the plate; if you can’t, it takes less out of you to walk to your destination.
Berlin cabs are first-class and second-class. The first-class cab is one in which the united ages of the driver, the horse, and the cab are under one hundred years. As soon as they are more than that they become second class.
Berlin is, I should fancy, now the cleanest and the best-lighted city in Europe. After months of darkest London, brightest Berlin is a distinct relief to me. From end to end in every street and in every shop it is a blaze of electric light and clean white colour.
I went to the steeplechases at Charlottenburg, where a few days previously our well-known gentleman rider, Mr. ‘Charley Thompson,’ had captured the hearts of the Berliners by his plucky riding in the race for the gold cup, which he won after being thrown heavily and having a can-can performed upon his chest by his horse. Berlin racing is a calm and serious affair. The officers (in uniform) ride their own horses, and all the soldiers on the course come to attention and salute as they pass by. No bookmakers are allowed, and you have to pay ten marks for a special ticket before you can even back a horse at the ‘totalizer.’ The object of this is to make it impossible for the working classes to gamble, and it is highly effective.
At one time anybody could patronize the Pari-Mutuel, but the working classes lost their money and then kicked up a row about it, and said they were ruined. The Kaiser heard of it, and stopped all racing at once. But after about six weeks he cooled down and gave permission for racing to be resumed again under certain conditions. The ten marks admission to the Pari-Mutuel enclosure is one of them. It is thus that a paternal Government protects the earnings of its workmen. With a view also of keeping the working classes from the racecourse, no racing is now permitted on Sunday. This is ‘all on account of the ‘Lizer'—the totalizer.
Kaiser Wilhelm, in spite of his eccentricities, which the Germans freely acknowledge, is undoubtedly immensely popular with his people. He is a German of Germans, and the Germany-for-the-Germans feeling was never so strong as it is at present. Our national motto is ‘Made in Germany,’ but the Vaterland does not return the compliment. ‘Made in England’ is not a common object of the seashore in the Kaiser’s dominions.
They tell many amusing stories in Berlin of the strength of the ‘national’ feeling. When Queen Victoria sent the Kaiser’s baby-boy a pair of shoes, knitted with her own royal and great-grandmotherly hands, the Emperor shook his head and laid them aside. ‘A German prince,’ he said, ‘must wear German shoes.’ And the baby’s little feet were at once duly encased in the home-made article.
I was in a blissful condition of lazy don’t-careism, enjoying myself in my own way, lounging in the sunshine (it turned suddenly warm after that snowstorm) ‘unter den Linden,’ sitting outside the confectioner’s eating ices, smoking cigarettes, and drinking chocolate, when in an evil hour I came suddenly upon an old German friend, who has been long a resident in Berlin. He insisted at once upon being my guide, philosopher, and friend. He said that he would ‘take me about’ and show me everything. He has kept his word, and I have had to telegraph home for new boots.
I remember an old song which was in years gone by a great favourite with Italian prime donne during the London opera season. They used to take it as an encore in the middle of various centuries and under every variety of surrounding circumstances. I think it was called ‘Home, Sweet Home.’ There was a passage in it which, as far as I could gather from the singers’ accent and ‘variations,’ ran somewhat after this fashion:
‘Through places and palaces though I may roam,
Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home.’