THROUGH GERMAN GLASSES

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 310, 7 January 1908, Page 4

THROUGH GERMAN GLASSES

HOW SUNDAY IS SPENT IX SYDNEY. " INCREDIBLE, BUT TRUE." The following translation from the " " ,,en Xachriihten, September 7, 1907, 1" given in the la.it is*u? of the " British Australasian." It gives a German view of a Sunday in Sydney:lately proposals have Wen made to extend the Sunday holiday further (in Cermanyl. Though these efforts are very laudable. people should beware of going too far. To what a too widespread holiday on Sunday leads we can r.adilv see |,v looking at conditions in Australia, where the holiday has been extended to the greatest degree no*, oiiile.

"We must preface our remarks by savins that in Australia. liesides the whole holiday on Sunday, they have a half-holiday on Wednesday." If on W edneiiday a man enters a restaurant at noon sharp, he finds that all the waitresses turn their backs upon him, as if at the word of command. If he comes in a moment or two before mid day, so that he has time to order his soup, the chance is that it is put down on another table at some distance off. because in the meantime the lady who serves him Tias heard twelve strike, and will carrv it no further.

* In s Sydney theatre where matinees are held a gentleman entered the dresscircle only one-half shaved. He mounted on to a chair to make his excuses, and declared that he was obliged to present himself in this staje, liecanse at the very moment when he was half done the barber had heard the clock strike, put the razor aside, and refused to go on (having. This is incre£ble, but true. " In Sydney, a town of 600,000 inhabitants, one can get nothing to eat on a Sunday. Certainly restaurants supply food surreptitiously, but the whole time the guests are in danger of beiag arrested. "Once an Italian was in such a restaurant on Sunday, when suddenly the police entered. The Italian was promptly pushed by the proprietor into a room where a waitress happened to be standing in negligee. Even this room the boorish A.C. invaded, but the waitress saved the situation by declaring that the young man was her fiancee. The young man, by the way, had been married some time. He thought that he had deceived the policeman, but, as a matter of fart, he had got out of the fryingpan into the fire, and had given himself away. One fine day the waitress called him before the Courts, and claimed £SOO for breach of promise. The Italian had to pay. And now comes the best of all. His wife sued for a divorce, and Bhortly after married another man.

"This is the sort of thing that happens to yon in Sydney, if yon go into a restaurant on Sunday. Panic and terror the city. If there are two consecutive holidays in Sydney, both are days of complete idleness and of absolute starvation. And the farce becomes a tragedy if someone dies on the day before the holidays. The undertakers observe them also, and the is not removed from the house till they are over. "That these laws must be broken is self-evident. But you have to be very wily and cautious in going to work, liecaose the policemen keep a watchful eve open for transgressors."