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I devoted the rest of my afternoon to a long walk through the town.
Processions of unemployed like we used to see during the great coal strike in some cities in the North of England were coming from the east part of the town. Women and children were in very large numbers, but there was also any number of men, old, crippled, or somehow unfit for military service. Unemployment is really the most striking symptom of the war in Berlin.
Many manufacturers have had to stop their works owing to the lack of raw material. The wool, silk, leather, and cotton industries are almost completely paralysed. Other works have been stopped because Germany cannot get any fuel. All the reserves of coal have been taken up by the Government for naval and military purposes. Also the toy, furnishing, and fancy trades have had to be completely stopped, as there are no customers for such goods.
Under the patronage of Kronprinzessin Cecilie, who, by the way, is very popular during this war, a movement has been started to assist the unemployed. But the crowd of out-of-works seems to increase daily, and the twenty thousand free dinners given away every afternoon by the relief committee don't seem enough for the innocent victims of the war.
Down the endless Friedrichstrasse I saw a company of a few hundred boys still in civilian clothes, marching stiffly, and trying to keep the compass-like Prussian step. Officers and sergeants in uniform were with them. Some of the recruits did not look more than fifteen or sixteen. Most of them, with large gold or tortoiseshell spectacles, represented the classical type of the German Gymnasium and Lyceum.
The crowd cheered the boys, and they marched away as stiff as possible, without even turning their eyes to the people in the street. An old man explained to me that they were boys a few months short of seventeen, who want to be perfectly ready when, in February, they will be accepted in the army as volunteers. There are apparently over fifty thousand boys of this class, who intend to volunteer as soon as the military authorities will allow them to do so.
To get out of the Sunday crowd I walked along the Spree. Here is one of the largest barracks in Berlin. I wonder how many men of the Kaiser Alexander Garde Grenadiers will come back to their beautiful home. It seems to have been one of the regiments most severely cut up in France lately.
On a large poster at the corner of Eberts-Brücke, amongst many affiches of music-halls, boot polish, and tooth paste, I read the announcement of a special evening service and sermon at the cathedral at five o'clock.