themselves, and carry out their resolve on March 1, 1883.[160] A few days before, the leading circles of Berlin celebrated great court festivities at which hundreds of thousands were squandered. Such are the shocking contrasts of modern society--and yet we live in "the best of all possible worlds." Berlin has since then often witnessed the holocaust of whole families due to material want. In 1894 the spectacle was frequent, to an extent that called forth general horror; nor are the instances few, reported from large and small towns within and without Germany. This murder and suicide of whole families is a phenomenon peculiar to modern times, and an eloquent sign of the sorry economic state that society is in. This general want also drives women and girls in increasing numbers into the arms of prostitution. Demoralization and crime are heaped up, and assume the most manifold forms. The only thing that prospers is the jails, penitentiaries and so-called houses of correction, no longer able to accommodate the mass that is sent to them. The crimes of all sorts and their increase are intimately connected with the economic state of society--a fact, however, that the latter will not have. Like the ostrich, it sticks its head in the sand, to avoid having to admit the incriminating state of things, and it lies to the point of deceiving itself into the belief that the fault lies with the laziness of the workingmen, with their love of pleasure, and with their irreligiousness. This is a self-deception of the most dangerous, or a hypocrisy of the most repulsive, sort. The more unfavorable the state of society is for the majority, all the more numerous and serious are the crimes committed. The struggle for existence assumes its rudest and most violent aspect: it transfers man into conditions where each sees a mortal enemy in the other. The social bonds become looser every day.[161]