iot" long ago complained of the inconvenience of
perambulating Berlin streets, where you are pushed off the sidewalks
and are in constant danger of involuntary surgical experience through
contact with the military swords that clank and clatter in the crowd.
There is still room for improvement in this respect. The owners of
sabres often seem to take it for granted that the right of way belongs
first of all to them and their weapons, and if any one is thus
inconvenienced that is the business of the unlucky party. The streets
and sidewalks are much wider and less crowded than those in Boston;
but a collision on a Boston sidewalk is rare, while a half-dozen rude
ones in an hour is a daily expectation in Berlin. A Berlin pedestrian
"to the manner born," in blind momentum and disregard of all
obstacles, has no equal in our experience.

It was told me that if you are run over by the swiftly driven horses
in the streets, you must pay a fine for obstructing the way.
Remembering that many regulations are relics of the times when laws
were made for the good of the aristocracy who ride, and not for the
vulgar crowd who walk, we did not try the experiment. Mounted
policemen are to be seen, like equestrian statues, at the intersection
of the more crowded thoroughfares, as Unter den Linden and Friedrich
Strasse, and with a little care there is seldom need of delay in
crossing. I heard of one poor cab-driver who was fined and cast into
prison for injuring a lady who suddenly changed her mind and took a
new tack while just in front of his horses. Regard for foot-passengers
seems thus to have an existence in some cases.

Regard for women is not a thing to which German men are trained. A
gentleman may not carry a small parcel through the street, but his
delicate wife may take a heavier one to save the disgrace of her
husband's bearing it. Among the middle classes, those couples who go
out for a walk with the baby-carriage invariably regard the management
of it as the wife's privilege, leaving to the father the custody of
his pipe or cigar alone. If the baby is to be carried in arms, it is
always the wife, not the husband, who bears the burden. Women in the
humbler classes wear no bonnets in the street, although sometimes in
cold weather they tie a little shawl or a handkerchief about the head.
Their usual habit is, however, to go out in all weathers with the head
as unprotected as the face, even for long distances. A maid follows
her mi