EVIL DAYS FOR FRITZ.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume XI, Issue 3336, 14 November 1919, Page 5

EVIL DAYS FOR FRITZ.

HTS DESPISED UNIFORM‘

BEGS HIS LIVELIHOOD IN . BERLIN STREETS.

Writing from B'erlin recently, the special correspondent of the Daily News states:—-

I hope my Collblvltl'.V is treating its discarded soldiers better than such men, from all one sees, are being treated in Berlin. The war-damaged soldier is here the most illtel'nationai—rninded of all proletarians; and it may be thiit his hard lot has driven him to the right conclusion when he thinks thaf the return of prisoners and the general treatment of hrank and ?file fighters is a matter for the c«o~ns.iderrltion of the workers. of fh.-_. world.

I know that in union the wardamagc are strong in Germany. They have done more to get their sad lot -.1 little bit ameliorated than the magistrates and other rulers would be willing to have done. But individually the damaged and discarded soldier is prominently, even obtrusively,.pitiable.

I have before me :1 Berlin sketch. “Types of the Alexanderplatz,” consisting of about eighty figures drawn by a talented artist. Taking them all together, boys, girls, babies, dogs, and other little oddments to fill up, 10 per cent of them are crippled soldiers. The second figure on the sheet is 2. wounded soldier playing 2, eoneertina, while a third is his companion singing ‘for charity. A little further on, one or two crutcheslook hungrily at the vendor of cookies; ‘another sits onelegged, and stares mournfully before him; another is blind an-i rails to see the exquisite joke of '4. dog running 07f with a. sausage that his little guide tries to show him; and the last figure on the page is double-crutchcd but cheerful‘ as he listens to the jokes of 3. cheap-jack. - _ ._ BEGGARS EVERYWHEI__§E. ' ‘ VVhen I go out of the Adlen,'tnl'ilillg' right down the Linden, I must pass

three or four palsied victims of shellshock sitting on the paveniem begging for a livelihood. More in the Friedrichstrasse. mostly Selling matclies or cigarettes; others going in and out of the restaurants, afvful exmnples. for their child-guides to point to as refisons for giving a copper or two. In order to buy a ticket at the "tation I must open my purse under the eye of one soldier beggar at the en» try to the guiehet and close it under tho eye of another as I pass away. Half-way up the stairs -a third sprawls in the hope of a further groschen. If, instead of-eoniing this way. I had turned to the left into the Tiergarten I should have had to run a stiff gauntlet through the Brandenburger Tor, and in "all sorts of places under the trees should have encountered tl:: mournful airs of barrelOrgans, groaning and squeaking, “Give,~gi\'e.” My first view of -Berlin was when the tziainvstopped on a viaduct by the Zoo. while chal'itablyminded passengers threw" a copper or two to a. -soldier playing a barrelorgan in the goods yard below. Unlike many first views, it Could not have been more typical of the prevailing aspect of the streets to-day. COMPASSIONATE GRETCHEN. In spite of their numbe'.'.=.. I think these unfortunate people take a lot of money. Beggars. were not allowed in Berlin'rbefore ‘-the war, -and their trade has thus the force of novelty. Germans are very kind-hearted people, and it is scarcely possible for some women to pass these human I‘enln-ants witliout dropping something in their caps. '

Enormous numbers of soldiers apparently sound must remain ‘in the once honoured field giey because they cannot afford to get into civilian clothes. They have the appearance of being cle trop, something between the civil population and well—paid “volunteers” that police Berlin. I suppose if the unemployed were collected in one place nine-tenths of them would be found wearing well-jbrushad uniforms, the garb of their last employment. So, and perhaps because it reminds them t-oo much of the war they have lost, the uniform is resented, and in 3 measure despised by 'B'el'liners. For my part. I have :1 sort of shame when I see these thin and patient soldiers among the fat population of Berlin. I have seen Fritz come over the top, and I am for him, if necessary, at the cost -of the warprofiteers as much as though he was my own late comrade in arms walking homeless in the streets of London.