Omaha Daily Bee Newspaper, March 22, 1903, Page 31

s ———————— T —————— A —— bl 5 Berlin the Best Managed City of Europe opyright, 153, by Frank G. Carpenter.) ERLIN, March 11.-—(8pecial Corre- spondence of The Bee.)—Berlin is the best managed city in Rurope. It has uniformly the best build- ings and the best streets. The streets are wide and well paved. Asphalt has been put down on most of them, and you can drep your handkerchief almost anywhere without soiling it. There is no rubbish to be seen. If you throw a scrap of paper on the pavement a policeman may order you to pick it up, and If you leave a pile of dirt in your yard you may be arrosted, The town is watched and everything is made pleasing to the eye. All plans have to be submitted to the city architect and cvery signboard has to be approved be- fore it can go up. You cannot build a dog kennel without the approval of the city tathers, and they regulate the width of every wall, the height of the ceilings and also the height of every house. The re- sult is that the most of the buildings are uniform. They are all flats, and you can ride for miles past yellow structures of five stories, most of which have stores below and apartments above. The Germans belleve in the city owner- ship of public works and Berlin is inter- ested in all sorts of undertakings. She owns the market halls and cattle yards. She has savings banks and loan offices and more real estate than any individual or corporation in Prussia. She owns gas and electric works, and lights not only the streets, but also private houses, for a con- siderat’>n. She runs an insurance com- pany, and forces every property owner (o take out an Iinsurance policy to prevent loss in case of fire. At the same time by her bullding regulations she sees to it that her losses are as few as possible, and the result is that the insurance department makes money. Indeed, every department does comparatively well; the city pays all of her own expenses and comes out a milllon dollars or so ahead at the end of the year. Still Berlin carries the interest upon a large public debt. It owes $65,000,000, which I8 a little more than one-fifth the debt of New York, $15,000,000 more than the debt of Philadelphia and a little lesa than threa times as much as is owed by Chicago. The & flerence between Berlin and the average American city is that Berlin gets the worth of its money. Its public build- ings are well put up and there are few public jobs. Of late the parks have been greatly improved. New roads have heen laid out in the Thiergarten, a wooded pleasure ground of 600 acres in the heart of the city. New statues have been put up there and among others that of the Alleee of Victory which is lined with marble figures and busts of German heroes, Berlin is bullding pleasure grounds for the children in eve.y quarter of the city. It is gradually remodeling the old streets and the day will come when It will vie with Paris as the most beautiful city of Europe. Berlin is now the third city of Rurope. London is first, Paris second, Berlin third and Vienoa fourth. Berlin proper has over 1,800,000 inhabitants, but with the suburbsg it has more than 2,000,000 and it is a gres- tion whether the Greater Berlin is not equal to Paris in sive, The town has been booming since the Franco-Prussian war. It had 500,000 in 1860, and at the time of the war only 750,000, After that the government got tle big war indemnity. The French puiled $1,000,000,000 out of their woolen stockings and handed it over to the German victors, and much of this money came to Berliy. The people flocked in from all paris of the empire to see If they could not get their share of il, and Berlin grew. It has been grow- ing over since, and notwithstanding the hard times It is growing today. It now covers twen!y-five square miles in the Spree valley and is reaching out in every direc- tion. A similar growth has taken place throughout the German empire. Nearly every city has put on t(he seven-league boots of modern progress and has built new buildings faster than most of our American towns. The improvements have been better than ours, and you wil' not find a country on earth that has as many fine cities as Germany in proportion to its pop- ulation. Let me give you a few facts about gome of the cities I know. I first ceme to Ger- many over twenty years agc, and the growth has been almost altogether since that time. Leipsig is three times as large as it was then. It had 100,000 popuatior at the time of the Franco-Prussian and it numbers almost half a million today. Munich and Dresden each have now half a million, Breslau has 422,000, Cologne 400,- 000 and Frankfort or the Main about 300,- 000. Dortmund, Barmen and Danzig have each 140,000; Chemnitz 200,000 and Hamburg has threec-quarters of a million and is fast rising toward the million mark. The United States has thirty-eight towns which have mcre than 100,000 popuiation. Prussia is not as big as Texas and it has twenty-two towns of more than 100,000 population. Stettin is bigger than Minne- apolis, Dusseldorf is bigger than Louisville, Hanover ranks with Newark, N J., Altoona is about as large as St. Paul and Elber- feld and Halle are of about the same size. Nuremberg is about as big as Washington and Charlottenburg and Koenigsburg, on the edge of Berlin, are each 180,000 and more. Indeed, the whole country is grow- ing and there are good-sized cities here the names of which we hardly know. Just now the times are hard and the country is fn the midst of a business depression. It has, however, plenty of resources, and its eavings banks are full. One of the best ways for a bird's eye view of Berlin is a ride on the Ringbabn. This {8 an elevated railway encircling the city and stopping at all the chief sections. There are two branches—the North Ring and the South Ring, which have trains every few minutes. The cars move by steam and the fares are exceedingly low. You can ride for an hour for 6 cents third class, and the second and first classes are not very cx- pensive. There are slot machines at the stations which sell third-class tickets for the ordiuary trip for 2% cents each. Such a ticket gives a ride for five stations, and if you go further you must arrange for an extra payment at the end of the ride. 1 took my tickets at the Friedrichstrasse Bahnhof. We shot out of the depot over an enormous restaurant built under the track and rode for some miles to the edge of the city. We went by the cattle market and slaughter houses belonging to the municipality, past the city gas works and skirted the edge of Berlin, finding five- story buildings clear to the boundaries. Further on we entered the city again, rode about the Thiergarten, past the zoological garden and in the end came back to the place where we started. This ride shows one how well Berlin is built and how we'l it is kept. Most of the builldings are new, and notwithstanding the poor, who are as many as in any city in RBurope except lLondon, it has no eye- sores. One sees no clothes hanging out of flat windows or on ropes or wires stretched from buillding to building as in the cities of the United States. There are no ash piles or tin cans in the back yards and even the weod and scraps are nicely piled. The roads are everywhere clean. The city is a dude compared with cther munic- ipalities. It has creases in its trousers and a bouguet in its buttonhole. Most of the flats in the summer have window gardens hanging out over the streets. These are filled with flowers and’ the various stories are decorated with lines of roses and fuchsias and other bright colored blos- soms. Of late the flats have been built with balconies arranged especially for flowers so that one can walk under hanging gardens for miles through the streets, look- ing up at flowers all the way. The business parts of the city are be- coming quite as well decorated as the residence sections. The Germans are good window dressers. They understand the value of plate glass, and many merchants keep men oa the sidewalks who rub the windows with chamois skin: cvery few minutes to keep the glass clear of mois- ture and dust. The stores usually have small stocks, but they carry the whole stock in the windows. Many of the windows are framed in with shelves or with rolling cupboards which can be pushed up close to the plate g ass. As you look at the windows you Imagine the establishment is large, but upon enter- ing find only a counter and a small com- pactment back of it, with one or tvo clerks in charge. If you ask to see something like the goods in the window the merchant rolls back the cupboard and hands you out the articles, for it is often the only one he has in stock. If you buy he thanks you, but if not, in most cases, he assumes an injured air and wonders what you mean by asking the price and handling his goods without purchasing. Indeed, 1 fear to look at any article here witnout I am sure of buying something be- fore I leave. The merchants arc not ac- customed to our ways of doing. They make more of their business and give you less for your money. YThey expect you to take your hat off when you enter the store and keep it off while there, and you uhould cLay good bye when you leave, at which time one of the clerks opers the door and bows you out. The average clerk wears a frock coat, and in the best stores all the clerks are dressed in this way. The crusty customs of Berlin merchants have made dupartment stores very pop- ular. The people are glad to go where they can look at goods without buying, and where the merchants advertise that it Is no treuble to show them. There have been no department stores in Germany until late, but there are now two in Berlin, either of which would be a credit to any American city. Each em- ploys about 2,500 hands, with more on Christmas. The most of the employes are girls, as well dressed and as fine-looking as you will see anywhere. They work from 8 o'clock in the morning until 9 in the evening, with two hours off at noor for lunch. Their wages are from 25 to 50 cents a day, and they cat and sleep thems selves. The department stores do all they can to attract custom and visitors. Take Wert- heims, which is the biggest store in Ber- lin. It has a winter garden filled with palm trees and tropical plants and so cov- ercd with ferns that they make a perfect carpet on each side the path. There is a fountain in it and reats under the palms where the customers can rest and chat between the intervals of shopping. In the summer there is an additional garden and fountain. The store has a iuncheon room and all the other attractions of similar establishments in the United States. Teitz's department store, which ranks next to Wertheim's, has an American sola fountain, which came from Philadelphia. The fourtain is an immense one, made of marble ard silver. It has about 100 spigots. Jt furnishes ice cream soda, but the ¢rink does not compare with our American ar- ticle. This is cne of the few soda foun- tains in Berlin and it is well patronized. Both of these stores have their photo- graph galleries, with special days for men, women and children. The day I visited Wertheims was evidently baby day, for a scere and more of babies were waiting 10 be taken. The photographer was a swell dressed in a long black frock coat and creased trousers. He showed me his in- stantaneous apparalus, consisting in part of magnesium flash lights operated by elec- tricity. All his photographs are made in one-hundredth of a second, which is espe- cially good for the babies. Another feature of the stores are their theater bureaus. Each sells tickets for all the operas, concerts, varieties and other amusements. Teitz has recently added a traveling bureau, where you can buy rail- road and steamship tickets and has round- trip rates all over Europe at reduced prices, One of the chief drawbacks in this trade is the lack of cash carriers or cash boys. The clerks ure not allowed to handle money. They merely make out a check for you and you go with them to ene of the cashier's desks stationed in different parts of the store and yourself pay over the monegw At the fame time the clerk hands youf purchases to the bundle boy to be wrapped up and goes back to his work. I don’'t know whether our department stores have the same system of buying goods which is common here. On the top floors of the department stores are sample rooms with counters and all facilities for displaying goods. On certain days of the week certain kinds of goocds are bought, and on these days the men selling such goods appear with their samples. Monday, for in- stance, may be corset day. At that time all the corset sa‘esmen from Berlin and claewhere come to the store and fix their samples in the rooms allotted to them. The buyers of the store go over them and order such as they want. Another day may he devoted to dresses, corts, etc., and a third to hardware. Berlin is one of the chief manufacturing cities ¢f Europe and many kinds of goods are made in it. It is noted for its notions, and in this is fast becoming equal to Paris. The Berlinese are fond of novelties, and Americans should send their newest things to this market. Already a var'ety of Amer- fcan goods are sold in the department stores, such things as speaking and musical machines, typewriters, photographic instru- ments, American furniture and desks hav- ing sections devoted to them. [ have taken geveral Turkish baths since I came to Berlin, and while doing so have had a birdseye view of the great German stomach. It is enormous! The god Bac- chus had nothing like it, and Gambrinus himself would look at it with envy. It Is almost universal. Every other man you meet carries a bay window abtout with him and some over-developed ones actually measure two feet from vest button to back- bone. These people live well. They are great eaters and great drinkers. Every block has its restaurant and beer zarden and in every one you can be wel fed. Some of the best restaurants are the cheapest. There is one known as ‘‘Kempinski's,”" on Leipsigerstrasse, not far from the corner of Freidrichstrasse, where I can get an excellent dinner for 2 or 3 wnarks. I pay 7% cents for a soup, 26 cents for as much roast goose as I want and 37 cents for a beefsteak. Salads ard swe2ts are propor- tionately cheap, and everything is well served. There are many other good restaurants, some so housed that they would be con- sidered palatial in the United States. The hotels have good meals, and altogether one gets as much for his money here as at any place 1 know. As to beer, the Germans make the best, and they know it. There are millions in- vesied in beer gardens and beer halls n Berlin, and their income amcunts to mil- lions a year. It is said that 1,000,000 glasses are drunk every day, and this means about £00,000 quarts. The beer glasses here are regulated by law, and the HOrdi- nary drink is twice that of the United States. There is a mark near the top of every glass made with a file to waich the beer must rise without foam, and the cus- tomer always insists on fu!l glasses. Beer in G )rmany takes the place of water. I venture there are ten glasses of beer swallowed here to every glass of water, and also that there are hundreds of men who drink on the average something like a gallon a day. Men, women and children drink, —arly and late, and the total consumption surpasses conceptiou. One of our consuls, of an arithmetical bent, recently made an estimate of the annual beer bill of the nation. H.s figures show that the Germars swallow enough beor every year to make a lake six feet de:p and mcre than a mile square, and so much that it will average forty gallons to e/cry man, woman and child in the couuiry. Much of the beer drunk {is Bavarian, which country i said to make the best beor in the wor. Munich a'one scipa 9,009 - 000 barrels *y vear, wnd it drinks more than- it The Nuremberzer and the ore also largely uveod, and mukes an excellen article. FRANK G. CARIFENTER. Berlin itsl? BERLIN SAVINGS BANK, OWNED BY TLX C!TY, FRIEDRICHSTRASSE ELEVATED RAILROAD DEPOT, » s L e \."l