"BERLIN, A DEAD CITY."

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXX, Issue 44, 26 May 1916, Page 2

"BERLIN, A DEAD CITY."

. LIKE A CEMETERY ON ALL SOULS' DAY. '•Compared with Budapest, Berlin is a dead 'city," says,the Hungarian editor, Mi Erno Garami, whose impressions., are quoted by the Budapest cor-respondent-of. the MorAing Post. The spirit of the people is described by him as folloHvs:—"The people are depress ed and sad; they do not enjoy them selves, they do not dance any more. Tho music halls close at 11, whether the performance is at an end or not; the cafes have to close an' hb'ur 'after midnight.' Dancing is prohibited, and. as a matter of fact, nobody thinks 61 dancing, although before the war hundreds of dancing places were crowded with people all night in Berlin. All these are empty and forlorn now, symboisihg'the spirit of ihe people. Tbe 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 arc given work by the eommuni-ios, so as to'make''their lot more more endurable. Tn 'Berlin they are building. . underground railway lines many miles Jong, the whole of the Friedrichstrasse is paved with wooden boards, and a tunnel' is being dug 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 Friedrichstrasse', making it double jits former size; and. in fact, everywhere the work of building and reconstruction is going on, all at municipal 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 I would like to see the end of the war; but every Berliner knows that peace d )es not rest with the German Government, but with the Entente Bowers, and in consequence they have resigned themselves to suffer to the end. During the four days of my stay in Berlin J did not see one crippled soldier. The authorities in Berlin do not allow them to impress the people on the streets with the horror of war if they can help it. I felt in Berlin as if I were walking in a cemetery on All Souls' Day."