Berlin is not the city of soldiers that the English fancy pictures it. English people, English little boys, for instance, who would like to see all their lead soldiers come to life, must go to one of the smaller garrison towns, where in every street and every square they will watch men on the march and at drill. In those quarters of Berlin not occupied by barracks the population is civilian. You see the grey and the dark blue uniforms everywhere, but not in masses and not at work. The people rush like children to follow the guard changed at the Schloss every day; just as they might in London, where soldiers are a rare spectacle. In a smaller town the army is more evidently in possession. It fills the restaurants, occupies the front row of the stalls at the opera, prevails in public gardens, and holds the pavement against the world. But Berlin to all appearances belongs to its citizens, and provides for their profit and convenience. They fill its multitude of houses. They say they make its laws and order its progress. At any rate they live in an agreeable, well-managed city, full of air and light, and kept so clean that most other cities seem slovenly and grimy by comparison. To go suddenly from Berlin to Hamburg, for instance, gives you a 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 _kräftig_, 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."