shock; though Hamburg is
incomparably more attractive and delightful. But in Hamburg you may
see bits of paper lying about, and dust on the pavement. In Berlin
there is no dust, and no one has ever seen an untidy bit of paper
there. It is to be hoped that no one ever travels direct from Berlin
to London. What would he think of Covent Garden Market? There are
markets in Berlin, at least a dozen of them, but by midday they are
swept and garnished. You would not find a leaf of parsley or an end of
string to tell you where one had been.

CHAPTER XXVII

ODDS AND ENDS

The most amusing columns in German daily papers are those devoted to
family advertisement. There you find the prolix intimate announcements
of domestic events compared with which the first column of the _Times_
is so bare, so _nichtssagend_.

"The birth of a second son is announced with joy by Dr
Johann Weber and Wife Martha, born Hansen."--Dresden,
22 May 1907.

"Emil Harzdorf and wife Magdalene, born Klaus, have the
honour to announce the birth of a strong
girl."--Hamburg, 26 May 1907.

Boy babies are nearly always _stramm_, the girl babies are _kraeftig_,
and the parents are _hocherfreut_, as they should be. Engagements and
marriages are advertised more simply, and your eye is not caught by
them as it is by the big black bordered paragraphs that inform the
world that someone has just left it.

"To-day, in consequence of a stroke of apoplexy, my deeply
loved husband, our dear father, grandfather,
father-in-law, brother, and uncle fell asleep. In the
name of the survivors, Olga Wagner, born
Richter.--Leipzig, 23 May 1907."

This is a curt announcement compared with many. When the deceased has
occupied any kind of official post, or has been an employer of labour,
a long register of his many virtues accompanies the advertisement of
his death. "He who has just passed away was an exemplary chief, a
fatherly friend and adviser, who by his benevolence erected an
everlasting monument to himself in the hearts of his colleagues and
subordinates." He who had just passed away had been the head of a
small soap factory, and this advertisement was put in by the factory
hands just beneath the one signed by all the family. Another
advertisement on the same page expresses thanks for sympathy, "on the
death of my dear wife, our good mother, grandmother, mother-in-law,
aunt, sister-