IT has frequently been a matter of astonishment to me that intelligent and even well-educated men should form strong opinions of a country and its people whose acquaintance they have made during a short visit, should summon the necessary courage to put them all down on paper, as if they were something valuable, and then find, not only publishers to print those personal and superficial impressions, but also clever and even learned readers who, without further discussion or doubt, accept as positive truth what is thus placed before them.

Any one who has a taste and a certain gift for observing his fellowcreatures, and who is conscientious enough to examine and revise his observations, understands how difficult it is to know thoroughly one single, simple human being-man, woman, or even child. He will

generally feel inclined to make reservations when called upon to give his opinion on the character of anybody, even if he has had frequent opportunities of observing

VOL. CXXXVI.-NO. DCCCXXV.

that person closely for a long number of years. It would take a big book to write down all he knows, or thinks he knows, about this single being; and yet, if he were told that he had been mistaken, and that his judgment had proved erroneous, he would scarcely feel greatly surprised, and would console himself by thinking that error is inherent to human nature, and that every day brings new lessons even to the wisest and most experienced of us.

The difficulty of characterising truthfully and well a single family, though all its members may bear a strong family likeness to each other, will be found still greater, nay, almost unsurmountable, by a conscientious man. The more he thinks about it, the more he finds it impossible for him to tell the whole truth. He will have to rest satisfied if he succeeds in giving a fair idea of the most marked characteristics of such a family. A good and felicitous definition from this point of view is that of the Roman family of whom it was

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said, if one could believe that it ever had been said, or that, if it was said, the saying was deserved, that all its men were brave and all its women chaste. But if he had to speak of the population of a large city or a great country, no sensible man would venture to pronounce a general judgment. To say, Dutchmen are slow, Frenchmen witty, Englishmen practical, Germans imaginative, Spaniards rash and hot-blooded-is just as true as the reverse would be: for there are thousands of choleric Dutchmen; slow, stupid Frenchmen; Englishmen who have no more idea of business than a child has; Germans as matter-of-fact and gifted with as much sound common-sense as may be found in any part of the world; and Spaniards as slow, cool, and collected as the most phlegmatic of Dutch peasants.

If any one feels inclined, or is called upon to give his opinion on

a town or on a country and its inhabitants, because he has seen a good deal of them, and has formed his judgment from what he has observed, he should give as a title to his essay the unpretending German word Beitrag,-that is to say, a fragment, a "contribution," which may, to a certain degree, serve to make a town, a country, or a people a little known to those who know nothing about them, or somewhat better known to those who have already acquired some knowledge of the subject.

Such a "contribution" to a description of Berlin and its society in 1884 it is my wish to furnish in the following fragmentary sketch. I do not pretend to give anything like a complete description of that town and its inhabitants. I cannot tell the whole truth, for I do not claim to know it; but, as a careful witness and a close observer, I promise to tell nothing but what I believe to be the truth.

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The first thing which strikes an Englishman on his arrival at Berlin is the quiet of its streets. In the commercial part of this large town, with its 25,000 houses and more than a million inhabitants, he may observe a quick and lively current of business life, - fastdriven cabs, taking men with carecountenances to the Exchange or similar places; heavily laden vans; omnibuses crammed with passengers; policemen keep ing careful watch; postmen rushing about with letters and telegrams; other pedestrians, whose particular business no one could divine, but who are evidently in that peculiar state of excitement and hurry caused by the fever of money-making; and lastly, shops

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with articles for sale of every imaginable description and quality. But all this will not strike the foreign visitor as extraordinary when compared with the bewildering noise and activity which may be daily observed in London in the crowded streets of the city, or with the constantly changing spectacle offered to the tourist by the Parisian Boulevards. What will seem strange to him is that the quiet place in which he finds himself after having crossed King's Bridge, and left the eastern, commercial part of Berlin behind him, should be the very centre of the social, political, military, and scientific life of the metropolis of the powerful German Empire. He may still pass through several

streets-such as "Unter den Linden," "Friedrichstrasse," "Leipziger Strasse ”—-where there is no lack of noise and movement; but the general character of the town he will find decidedly quiet. Pedestrians and carriages can easily get along without being impeded by the crowd; and in certain large streets, such as "Wilhelmstrasse," where the palaces of Prince Bismarck, Prince George, Prince Frederic-Charles and Prince Albrecht of Prussia, of the Ministers of the Royal House, of Justice, of the Interior, of Foreign Affairs, of War and of Finance, and also some of the best public hotels of Berlin are situated, there reigns, even in the middle of the day, an almost solemn silence. After seven or eight o'clock in the evening the street becomes almost deserted. Proceeding more westward still, past the "Brandenburger Thor" Brandenburg Gate one reaches the most pleasant part of Berlin, which takes its name from a large, beautiful old park, called the Thiergarten," where quiet peaceful walks through the woods, or clean well-kept roads may be enjoyed, as in some rural place, miles away from the din and turmoil of a large city. Fine old trees are to be seen on every side; numerous villas stand in the midst of beautiful gardens; shops have almost entirely disappeared; and most of the people one meets seem to be quite at leisure. On a Sunday, when the weather is fine, thousands of men of business and artisans may be found in the Thiergarten and the adjacent streets, seeking relaxation, or perhaps merely in quest of fresh air; but during the remainder of the week that fashionable quarter, with the exception of some streets, where the local traffic goes on, will always be very quiet; and late in

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the evening one may walk through long streets in profound silence, without meeting any one, except, perhaps, a watchman, or a cabman driving his vehicle home. The fact that most of the foreign visitors to Berlin are lodged in the western part of the town, and seldom have occasion to go eastward of King's Bridge to the really commercial districts, is the reason why, on returning to London or Paris, they generally carry away the impression that Berlin, the capital of the most powerful empire of the Continent, is, if measured by the same standard as the capitals of England and France, a very quiet, rather dull place, with nothing like the excitement of London, or the gaieties of Parisian street life. "Where are your million of inhabitants?" they frequently ask. "Your streets are empty. Where do your people hide away?"

There is no doubt that Germans stay a great deal more inside their houses than either French or English people. There are few idlers, few sight-seeing provincials, few foreign visitors in Berlin. Berlin is on the road to nowhere except to Russia, where few people go for their pleasure. Strangers arriving in Berlin generally have some special purpose or business, and get into the way of living as the people of the place do. Nearly everybody in Berlin has some business which, during the day, keeps him at his office or in his house, and which, moreover, tires him a good deal; so that, when evening comes, he enjoys quiet rest in his own or in a friend's family, or maybe in a club or public-house, more than the varied pleasures which he would have to seek out of doors. Berlin was formerly poor, and the great wealth which is now agglomer

ated in the capital of Germany, is divided among few. The native of Berlin is from necessity a hardworking man. He enjoys his recreation thoroughly, but his hours of leisure are few and far between. "Berlin has starved itself into greatness," was the expression of a Prussian prince. Take a scholar, an artist, an official, or a merchant of Berlin, and question him about his habits of life, and in most cases you will be surprised to learn how little exercise he takes. The poor hard worked man tells you "I find no time for a quiet stroll;" he who is well off, complains of having become too idle to walk much. "I was not accustomed to it when I was young," he will say, "and I have grown too old to take to it now. I do my walking in summer at Carlsbad or Marienbad." To all this must be added that the climate of Berlin is not particularly agreeable. The winter is often very cold, and the summer very hot. There is no lack of snow, dust, and rain in turn. There are undoubtedly fine bright days in summer, and even in winter, not to speak of spring and autumn, when the Thiergarten is really beautiful; but the people of Berlin-I speak chiefly of the upper classes dwelling in the same quarters of the town as those which foreign visitors mostly frequent-do not seem to care for exercise, and have sedentary habits from which they do not willingly depart, even when the weather would appear most tempting.

The general aspect of Berlinto speak now of its buildings-is that of quite a modern city, though its origin dates as far back as the middle of the thirteenth century. But very little-one may say almost nothing remains of those long past times, when poverty, war, and

pestilence prevented the city from establishing itself firmly. Even what is now called "Old Berlin is scarcely more than a couple of centuries old. In 1640 Berlin had only 6000 inhabitants, living in some 800 miserable houses, most of which had but one storey and a thatched roof. From that date the city grew rapidly and steadily. But even two centuries and a half cannot be considered a great age for a large town; and with the exception of the old "Royal" now "Imperial Castle," the Schloss, there is scarcely any building to be found in Berlin to which the epithet of "venerable" can be applied. The fine new streets which run west and north-west of the Brandenburger Thor, and nearly all that quarter of the town of which the Thiergarten is the centre, and which is by far the richest and most pleasant part of Berlin, have risen into existence during the last twenty, and even principally during the last ten, years. The buildings there do not in any way resemble those in the new Parisian streets. They display a great variety of styles, with a decided tendency towards the picturesque. Straight direct lines, monotonous solid rows of houses, like most of the modern Parisian avenues and boulevards, are not to be seen in Berlin. Almost every house has a certain individuality of its own which distinguishes it from its neighbours.

The internal arrangements of most of these houses are very convenient, though almost every apartment contains at least one badly lighted large room, called "Berliner Zimmer." Neither in London nor in Paris, however, not to speak of Vienna, Rome, or St Petersburg, can well-to-do people, for a relatively small rent, command apartments as good as in the new