BAD MANNERS IN BERLIN

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 97, 18 January 1921, Page 10

BAD MANNERS IN BERLIN

A NOVEL COMPETITION. Apparently some Berliners themselves concur in the view that manners which notoriously were bad in Berlin before the war ate now even worse. In any case, according' to tho “Morning Post,’ an effort to arrest the deplorable decay of good manners amongst the inhabitants of tho German capital has been undertaken bv tho “Berliner Morgenpost,” an enterprising and widely 7 circulated morning journal. The “Morgenpest” instituted a “Good Manners Week” for Greater Berlin, to run from November 28 to December 5. It was arranged that during these days emissaries of the great publishing house of Ullstein, which owns the ‘’Morgenpost,’’ should traverse Berlin, like Lars Porsena’s messengers, cast, west, north, and south, noting acts of courtesy and passages of good breeding wherever they were met with. “When ever a gentle deed is done in the street, shops, ’bus, tram, or train,” so ran the announcement, “Ullstein’s ambassador will see it, and will immediately press into the hand of the courteous knight or dame in question an envelope containing a document inviting him or her to attend the final judgment in Ullstein’s halls by experts of the ‘Morgenpost.’ “When the. week is over all courteous acts reported will be investigated by a tribunal of experts, reporters will be examined, and in accordance with the evidence {Tie golden toll of good manners will he framed in order of merit. To the knightliest of all the prize of 1000 marks will bo awarded. Those judged second, third, and fourth in the lists of courtesy will receive respectively 500, 400, and 300 marks. Tor those of less conspicuous merit two hundred prizes in the form of books and pictures are reserved. Tho journal thoughtfully warns wellbred persons against parting with money to swindlers who may claim to belong to Ullstein’s cloud of witnesses, and offer to record their names in Ullstein’s roll of chivalry in return for a fee. It need only be added that, as rhe journal points out. even before tlie war the Berliner’s reputation for politeness never stood high among his own countrymen.