Part 5

Before I advertised in the paper I had decided to hold out for my price, one hundred marks. At 10.30 A. M. I was offered ninety marks, but I said one hundred was my price. At 11.30 there was a lull in the callers, but the telephone rang like wild. A little Jew came in and offered me fifty-three marks for my typewriter. I was standing there looking very much insulted at the idea of any one daring to offer me fifty-three marks for my good machine, when suddenly the landlady appeared at the door of my room. "Fräulein McAuley," she said severely, glaring at the Jew, "I want this to cease. The maids have done nothing this morning but answer the phone and go to the door about your typewriter. Do you understand?"

I felt squelched and begged her pardon, and when she left banging the door after her, I looked helplessly at the Jew. "Sixty-five marks," he said sympathetically. "Make it sixty-six," I said, "and you can have it." "Done," he answered, and I sold my typewriter at the profit of one mark after having it a year.

I explained to the landlady that I had not put the telephone number in the paper, and she was pacified. Her daughter admired the American way in which I had made the sale, and the following day she put an "ad" in the same paper for a pair of field glasses she had. "All the soldiers will want them," she said. They prepared for a rush such as I had had for the typewriter, and not a soul answered the advertisement. Both mother and daughter blamed me for it. I think they thought that I had done something more than merely advertise in the paper.

MOVING IN BERLIN.

When you move from one place to another in Berlin it takes just about three days to get all the food cards in order again. Here is what you would have to do if you move from one suburb of Berlin to another, say from Charlottenburg to Wilmersdorf. This is for all foreigners--even neutrals.

First you go to the _Portier_ or janitor of the building where you live in Charlottenburg, and he gives you three green slips which you fill out. These slips tell your name, age, occupation, religion, nationality, where you were born and where you last lived. After they are filled out the _Portier_ signs them. The _Portier_ keeps one slip, sends one to the magistrate of Charlottenburg and gives you the third. With this green slip you go to the Charlottenburg police. In the first room a policeman looks up your record which you are surprised to find filed in a little box, and if your record is all right he sends you into the next room where the chief presides. The chief of each police station has charge of all the foreigners, and at the little branch police station on Mommsenstrasse where I reported in June the chief told me he had over five hundred foreigners in his district.

You present your green slip, which the man outside has stamped, and your passport to the chief, and after more filing and stamping both on the slip and on your pass, you are ready to move. As soon as you get to Wilmersdorf the new _Portier_ gives you three white slips to fill out. They are very similar to the green ones and ask the same questions. The _Portier_ signs these, and he keeps one, sends one to the magistrate of Wilmersdorf, and with the third white slip, your green slip and your pass, you go to the police in Wilmersdorf. Here they file and stamp and then give you back your pass and the white slip which has been stamped for the bread commission.

It is not necessary to go to the bread commission in Charlottenburg, but you must take all your food cards and your white slip with you to the bread commission in Wilmersdorf. Here they look over all your cards very carefully to make sure you are not trying to cheat them and then they give you an entirely new lot of cards cutting them off up to date so you can't get more than your share of food. So far moving has been easy, but the worst part of the business is to come, and that is getting registered to buy meat, eggs, butter, sugar and potatoes at certain stores. Lately this registering has been somewhat simplified, and you can get registered at the bread commission for all the articles except meat, but when the registering was first introduced each person had to go to the _Rathaus_ or city hall himself and get registered for each article. This meant that one had to stand at least an hour--for there were always such crowds--at five different rooms waiting to have your sugar, meat, butter, potato and egg cards stamped so that you would be allowed to buy these articles, and after you were registered you could buy them only in a certain store, but if you weren't registered you couldn't buy these articles at all. This registering scheme was a very good one, for since it has been introduced there has been no standing for any of these articles, and when the people go for their butter or eggs they find it waiting for them, and the food controllers give each shopkeeper just as much of each of these articles as he can show he has customers registered to buy that article in his store. This has also done away with a lot of selling _Ohne Karte_, or without a card, for the shopkeeper does not dare to sell without cards, for then he would not have enough for his registered customers and then the police would get after him.

Just to show you what a trouble this registering is I will tell you of the time I had getting registered to buy an egg. I got the egg card easily enough. I had lived at a boarding-house before and I did not even know that you had to be registered for eggs. I took my egg card and went to Herr Blumfeld, an egg-dealer near by, and told him I wanted to buy the egg due on my card. That week we got only one egg apiece. Herr Blumfeld said that he would gladly sell me the egg, but first I would have to go to the magistrate of Charlottenburg and get registered to buy from him, but that after I got registered I could always buy eggs from him.

That didn't sound so hard, so I took the egg card and went to the court-house, which was about six stations on the underground. The court-house was black with people madly rushing to and fro with cards in their hands, red cards, green cards, yellow cards and blue cards. There were soldiers, prosperous looking business men, maids, children, well-dressed women, and women with shawls on their heads. Guides were stationed everywhere, but the people did not seem to be able to find the room they wanted.

I asked a guide where the egg room was, and he pointed it out to me, "_Eierzimmer 91_." I had to go up five flights of stairs, for all the registering rooms were on the top floors. About seventy-five people were ahead of me waiting to be registered to buy eggs. It was about an hour before my turn came, and then I presented my card and said, "I would like to buy eggs from Herr Blumfeld on Pestalozzistrasse."

"Where is your _Ausweiskarte_?" the lady at the desk asked. I told her I had none and had never heard of one.

"I can't register you for eggs without an _Ausweiskarte_. So you will have to go home to your _Portier_ and get one."

I took the underground and hurried home. The _Portier_ said that he had no _Ausweis_, or permit cards, and that I would have to go to the bread commission and get it. After waiting at the bread commission in line for an hour, I succeeded in getting an _Ausweis_ card, and then I rushed back to the magistrate. This time I had to wait only half an hour, and at last I came to the desk and was registered to buy an egg from Mr. Blumfeld of Pestalozzistrasse.

I had spent the whole day trying to get that egg, and I was happy in the thought that my efforts were not in vain. As I rode back on the underground I was trying to decide, "Would I eat my egg for breakfast or for dinner? Would I have it boiled or fried?" and then the awful thought came to me, "What if the egg was bad?" That would be too cruel!

It was just seventeen and a half minutes to eight when I got back to the egg shop of Herr Blumfeld. He was sweeping. I waved my card triumphantly, "I have it," I cried. He leaned his broom against the counter and pointed to a sign hanging over the stove, "_Eier ausverkauft_" (Eggs sold out). I looked at it, then staggered, and then fainted dead away in the greasy arms of the astonished Herr Blumfeld, _Eier-Grosshändler_.

WHAT THE GERMANS READ IN WAR TIME.

"Gobble! Ah a gobble!" That is what it sounds like when you hear the newspaper sellers crying out their wares on Potsdamer Platz in the evening. But this is really not what they are saying. They are saying, _Abendausgabe_ or "Evening Edition."

It is a pretty sight, the Potsdamer Platz--cabs rattling along, jingling street-car bells, the square black with civilians and gray with soldiers, wagons drawn up to the sidewalks loaded down with bright-colored fruit and vegetables, women selling flowers--violets, roses, lilies-of-the-valley--_Zehn Pfennige ein Sträusschen_, and above all the other sounds the cries of "Gobble! Gobble Ah-a-gobble!"

Compared with our big American newspapers a German paper is a very little affair. Its pages are about half as big as the pages of our papers, and in the morning they usually have only eight pages, and in the evening six. There are no glaring headlines to a German paper, and no red ink is used. Even when Kitchener was drowned or America declared war, it appeared in the papers as a headline with letters no more than three-quarters of an inch high.

There is absolutely nothing sensational about a German newspaper, even in war time. They all look alike, and one has to look at the date of the paper to make sure that it is not the paper of the day before. They have no cartoons, and they rarely have any pictures. The Sunday supplement has few "funnies" and never any colored pictures. There are no spicy scandals, no sensational divorce trials and no tales of thrilling murders with the picture of the house where the dark deed was committed marked with an X. Then there is no woman's page and no society column. You ask, well, what have they in their papers?

On the first page is the war news, very brief. It gives the General Staff's report from all the war fronts, and this report is signed by the general on each of these fronts. The second page is devoted to news of a more local character. They often print interviews on this page. They make more of a feature of interviews in Germany than we do in America. On the other pages they have sports, the drama, music, stories, and always one article of literary character. One of the big features on the front page is the printing of the under-sea boat booty. Whatever is printed in the German newspapers is the truth as far as it goes, but not everything that is known is printed. What the people really get is the truth without details. The people would like to read these details, but they do not get them. One of the most surprising things that was printed was Zimmermann's letter to Mexico. It came out in all the papers, for Zimmermann thought that the best thing to do was to publish it. It was not very popular with the German people.

One of the things that was not printed in the German papers was the great spy scandal in Norway. I never heard one word about it until I came to Norway. The papers are controlled by a censor. Once last summer the _Berliner Tageblatt_ was shut off for three days. They printed something which the censor did not like, but the general public never found out what the offending article was.

There are three great publishing houses in Berlin. First, the August Scherl Company, which publishes the daily newspaper _Lokal-Anzeiger_, a morning and an evening paper which has a very large circulation among the poorer class of people and is used for small advertisers. Scherl also publishes _Die Woche_, a weekly well known in America; _Die Gartenlaube_, a magazine for women; _Der Tag_; and _Der Montag_, a newspaper which comes out every Monday.

A second great company is the Rudolf Mosse Company which publishes the well-known _Berliner Tageblatt_, a morning and an evening paper. The third and perhaps greatest company is the Ullstein Company which publishes the _Vossische Zeitung_, a morning and evening paper; the _Berliner Morgenpost_, a paper read by the working class; _B. Z. am Mittag_, a little sheet which comes out at noon and is easily the most popular paper in Berlin; the _Berliner Illustrierte Zeitung_, a splendid weekly which sells for ten pfennigs. Everybody in Berlin reads this weekly, for it has good war articles, fine stories and many interesting pictures. There are many other papers published in Berlin, such as the 8 _Uhr Abendblatt_, a sheet which comes out at seven in the evening, and the _Tägliche Rundschau_, a splendid paper of literary character.

The morning papers cost ten pfennigs and the evening papers cost five pfennigs. Last summer the _B. Z. am Mittag_ raised its price to ten pfennigs, but the public refused to pay the price and in four days it was back to 5 pfennigs again.

All the larger papers have what they call a _Briefkasten_ or a letter box, which is an information and clipping bureau combined. Here forty or fifty people are employed all day long clipping and filing things. Any one can go to this bureau or write to them and is given information free of charge. They even give medical advice free.

The large publishing houses publish books. The Ullstein Company makes a specialty of books for one mark each. They published the "Voyage of the U Deutschland" by Captain Paul König, and every one in Germany read this book.

There is one newspaper in Berlin published in English. It is supposed to be an American paper, but its Americanism was of a very peculiar brand. This paper is called the _Continental Times_. The most prominent socialistic paper is called the _Vorwärts_. It is allowed a good deal of freedom but once in a while it is suppressed. On the 19th of April of this year 3000 working men and women gathered on Unter den Linden. It was the only approach to a strike or a riot that I saw as long as I stayed in Germany. The _Vorwärts_ was against this movement, and mostly through its influence the people went back home. The paper has a tremendous influence. Maximilian Harden's pamphlet _Zukunft_ is universally read with much interest and curiosity. Harden is allowed about the same privileges in Germany as Bernard Shaw is allowed in England.

In the main cities in the territory captured by the Germans, in Lille, Brussels, Warsaw, Lodz and Vilna, they have established very good papers printed in German. Then they have papers issued for the soldiers at the front, like the _Champagner Kamerad_, and the _Landsturm_. These papers contain war news, stories, jokes and poems.

German newspapers never call their enemies ugly names, and they have remained very dignified sheets. English newspapers are very much read in Germany. These papers are only four days old, and as most of the Germans of the better class read English, they are in great demand. In any of the leading cafés or at the newsdealers one can have the _London Times_, the _Daily Mail_, the _Daily Telegraph_, the _Illustrated London News_, the _Graphic_, _Sphere_ and _Punch_. French and Italian papers are also to be had. American papers came very irregularly, but even yet a few leak through, and when I left in July I saw American papers up to April 30. If news in an English paper does not coincide with that in the German paper, the German reader does not believe it--that is the only impression it makes on him.

In Berlin they do not have great war bulletins in front of the newspaper offices as we do at home. The nearest approach to our bulletins is in Copenhagen, where they hang bulletins, printed in very large letters, in the second-story window of the newspaper office. A German war bulletin is about as big as an ordinary sheet of typewriting paper, and it is hung low in the newspaper office window where every one takes his turn reading the fine print. Sometimes the bulletins are written by hand with a lead pencil. Other bulletins are printed on single sheets of paper and are distributed on the streets free.

The number of pamphlets written about the war is endless. Every doctor and every professor in Germany seems to have written a book, and every phase of the war has been touched upon. Most of the books are gotten up in a very attractive way with soft backs. They have very few stiff-backed books in Germany. Since the war many books on art, music, science, medicine and literature have been published.

Newspapers have to keep down to a certain size on account of the scarcity and cost of paper, but books are no more expensive than they were before the war, and they have book sales the same as we have in America. A few weeks before I left, Wertheim's large department store had a sale of English-German dictionaries, very large books at four marks each. They had a window decorated with these books, and they were soon all snapped up, for the Germans said that they could see no reason why they should not go on with their study of English because the English were enemies.

The war has not spoiled the German's love of reading romances, and so many novels of the cheaper type have been written that a society has been formed to keep the boys and girls from reading them. They have automatic book stands in all railway stations where you put twenty pfennigs in the slot and get a novel. There are many cheap editions of patriotic songs printed in small pocket volumes convenient for soldiers in the trenches.

PRECAUTIONS AGAINST SPIES, ETC.

SOLDATEN! Vorsicht bei Gesprächen! Spionengefahr!

This sign is hanging in every street car, train coupé, restaurant, store and window with a war map in Germany, and it warns the soldiers to be careful in their speaking, that dangerous spies travel about.

Germany is trying to prevent things that she does not wish known from becoming known by locking them up even in the mouths of her soldiers, and if she were as clever at concealing her tactics abroad as she is at home, Zimmermann's famous letter to Mexico would never have been found.

Not only the soldiers on the streets must keep quiet, but the soldiers in the field as well, and each soldier has written directions that in case he is taken prisoner he shall give no information to the enemy. He must not tell the number of his regiment, his age or what district he is from, for all these things give the enemy important information. It is especially important that the enemy shall not know what regiment is opposing them.

All the foreigners in Germany are under police control, but none of the enemy civilians are interned except the English. The Americans, Russians, French, Belgians and Italians are free except that they must report once a day to the police, and they cannot go from one city to another without a permit. Most of the Americans get off with going to the police only once a week. The Poles have to go twice a week. All neutral foreigners must go to the police and register when they change their address. The Germans must do this too in order to get a bread card. The food cards have been great things for weeding out criminals and spies, for no one can get a card unless he is registered at the police, and many famous criminals who have been evading the police for years have been caught since the war.

There are very few slums in Germany, but in Berlin they have a few dens where crooks hold out, and bread cards can be bought for fifty pfennigs to one mark. An American boy I knew in Berlin who spoke German like a native, used to dress in old clothes and visit these places. Sometimes he was taken for a foreigner but nearly always for a German. He said that the men made signs from one table to the other when they had anything to sell. He often bought cards for fifty pfennigs. One crook that he got acquainted with was a German who went around begging, saying that he was a Belgian refugee. He had some kind of a medal to show people and his begging business netted him a nice little income.

The boy said that the slums were rather "slow," very little drinking and a great deal of planning of things that they were afraid to carry out, for a German crook hasn't much courage. One café that the boy often visited was the "Café _Dalles_," which means "Café Down and Out." It was situated right near the Kaiser's Berlin palace. One night in the summer of 1916 it was raided just a few minutes before the boy got to the place. Through this raid the police discovered that some one was manufacturing bread cards by the thousands each week. They were an almost perfect imitation of the real cards. Of course even the clever Berlin police could not control all the crooked work that was going on with the food cards, but they kept things pretty well under hand. One scheme that was worked was, when a family changed their residence, to register an extra one in the family. I used to wonder often that the Germans had the nerve to do this, for they were terribly afraid of being caught.

In Germany a foreigner uses his passport on every occasion, and one must always carry it. You can't send a telegram out of Germany without showing your pass, and then if you send it in any other language than German, you must make a German translation of the message at the bottom of the sheet.

No foreigner, not even a neutral, is allowed to go to the seaside unless he has a doctor's certificate, and even then it is hard to get a permit. No kodaks are allowed at the seaside, and one is not allowed to sketch. Now they are very strict about any one taking pictures in or around Berlin.

When you come into Germany, you are not allowed to bring either a kodak or a Bible with you. One can easily see the reason for the kodak being prohibited, but people are always surprised when their Bibles are taken away from them. In all wars the Bible has been used as a place for concealing secret messages and the garb of a priest, nun, or minister has been a favorite disguise for spies.

A man I knew in Berlin came over by way of Holland. He had a Bible, a prayer-book and a Chicago telephone book with him. He was astonished when they took the Bible and the prayer-book away from him and allowed him to keep the telephone book. It was winter when he came over, and he had on a coat with turn-back cuffs. He lives in Chicago, and he had acquired the habit of sticking street-car transfers in his cuffs. When he was searched the searcher found a transfer in the cuff, and the American was marched off to an officer. The German officer looked at the transfer long and interestedly and then laughed, "Why, I know that line, I have been in Chicago myself."

On this same boat was a preacher. The preacher was sure that he as a member of the cloth would have no trouble, and then he had a stack of credentials sky-high. When he was searched more closely than the rest he grew insolent and said things, and as a result he was held up three days until his friends in Germany helped him out.