IN GERMANY.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 219, 23 December 1916, Page 6

IN GERMANY.

SNAPSHOTS FROM LIFE. "WHAT IS NOW PASSING BEHIND CLOSED DOORS. LIFTING THE VEIL. NEW YORK. The following interesting snapshots -were taken in Germany by Mr Herbert Bayard Swope, the gifted news editor and special correspondent of the New York World, who returned to the city only three weeks ago after a two months' sojourn in the Fatherland, ■where he enjoyed facilities denied to the average neutral conrespondent. Every picture tells a story. 3ft 3jC !f! SJ» The great mental change in Germany in the last two years from, a certainty of victory to a fear of defeat has had its reflex on the spirit of the population. It is a rare thing to hear a laugh In Germany, and I visited many theatres without hearing applause. Night life has disappeared. The supper restaurants are morgue-like in their lack -of cheer, and none ser<ves more than two or three parties at a time. * * * * In Berlin and the other cities the newly recruited troops are usually sent to tre front at night. There is an absence of that pomp and circumstance of -war that marked the departure of the soldiers at the beginning. Now the easiest way is considered the best, and , so they are taken out quietly after nightfall. *> m * * * The search a traveller undergoes in . entering or leaving Germany is one that he or she is not likely to forget easily. They are stripped and their ' mouths, ears', noses and other pants of the body examined. Their fountain 'pons ar e empted, every scrap of paper j is taken away, and even matches are ' confiscated. If they wear bandages they must b e stripped pff too. ifo distinction is drawn between men and wo"Sheh, except, of coiiiiso. that the women are examined by female inspectors. Til night life of Berlin —that once burned so fiercely bright as to make it the talk of the world, not for its gaiety but for its lavishness; not for its spontaneity, but for its foreedness —has been entirely wiped out. The street women are still there, but have all been put to work. Such life as is still to be found is groin and lacking in merriment. It is a rare thing to find music in restaurants. * * * * Theatres ar e open, but the Germans ' take their pleasures seriously. They go to a comedy as they would go to an execution. It is their duty, they feel, to obtain recreation. g z'f :£ % A man or woman wearing evening clothes in any of the German cities i a a rar e object, and one of suspicion. It is considered an evidence of gaiety, and gaiety is tabooed. The women all dark clothes, and their evening frocks are rarely more than slightly decollete.