"BERLIN A DEAD CITY.”

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 1554, 23 May 1916, Page 2

"BERLIN A DEAD CITY.”

“COMPARED with Budapest, Berlin is a dead city,” says the Hungarian edit oi', M. Erno Garami, whose impressions are quoted by the Budapest correspondent of the Morning Post. The spirit ' of the people is described by him as follows :—“The Berlin people are depressed and sad ; they do not enjoy themselves, they do not dance any more. The music halls close at 11, whether the performance is at an end or not ; the cafes have to close an hour after midnight. Dancing is prohibited, and, as a matter of fact, nobody thinks of dunging, although before the war hundreds of dancing places were crowded with people all night in Berlin, All these are empty and forlorn now, synibolising the spirit of the people. The working men, on the other hand, are not as idle as they are at Budapest, for the hundred thousand workers who lost their jobs in consequence of the total stoppage of German industry

are given work by tin* communities, so ns to make their lot more endurnhle. In Berlin they nre building underground railway lines mnny miles long, Ihe whole of the Friedrichstrasse is paved with wooden hoards, and a tunnel is being dii” - under it, many thousands of men working beneath the earth. They are boring a tunnel under the Spree for the underground railway ; they are rebuilding their greatest railway station, the one at the end of the Friedrichslrasse, making it double its former si/.e ; and, in faet, everywhere the work of building and reeonslruetion is going on, all at munieipal or State expense, for private enterprise is at a standstill. Another difference is also noticeable ; nobody is shouting victory, as they do in Vienna and Budapest, not even in the cafes. Everybody speaks softly, everybody would like to see the end of Ihe war ; but every Berliner knows that peace does not rest with the Berman Government, but with the Mnlente Bowers, and in consequence they have resigned themselves to sutler to the end. During the four days of my stay in Berlin i did not see one crippled soldier. The authorities in Berlin do not allow them to impress the people on (he streets with the horror of war if they can help it. I felt in Berlin as if 1 were walking in a cemelerv on All Souls’ Dav.”