CHAPTER IX
Harris breaks the law--The helpful man: The dangers that beset him--Georgesets forth upon a career of crime--Those to whom Germany would come as aboon and a blessing--The English Sinner: His disappointments--The GermanSinner: His exceptional advantages--What you may not do with your bed--Aninexpensive vice--The German dog: His simple goodness--The misbehaviourof the beetle--A people that go the way they ought to go--The Germansmall boy: His love of legality--How to go astray with a perambulator--TheGerman student: His chastened wilfulness.
All three of us, by some means or another, managed, between Nuremberg andthe Black Forest, to get into trouble.
Harris led off at Stuttgart by insulting an official. Stuttgart is acharming town, clean and bright, a smaller Dresden. It has theadditional attraction of containing little that one need to go out ofone's way to see: a medium-sized picture gallery, a small museum ofantiquities, and half a palace, and you are through with the entire thingand can enjoy yourself. Harris did not know it was an official he wasinsulting. He took it for a fireman (it looked like a fireman), and hecalled it a "dummer Esel."
In German you are not permitted to call an official a "silly ass," butundoubtedly this particular man was one. What had happened was this:Harris in the Stadgarten, anxious to get out, and seeing a gate openbefore him, had stepped over a wire into the street. Harris maintains henever saw it, but undoubtedly there was hanging to the wire a notice,"Durchgang Verboten!" The man, who was standing near the gates stoppedHarris, and pointed out to him this notice. Harris thanked him, andpassed on. The man came after him, and explained that treatment of thematter in such off-hand way could not be allowed; what was necessary toput the business right was that Harris should step back over the wireinto the garden. Harris pointed out to the man that the notice said"going through forbidden," and that, therefore, by re-entering the gardenthat way he would be infringing the law a second time. The man saw thisfor himself, and suggested that to get over the difficulty Harris shouldgo back into the garden by the proper entrance, which was round thecorner, and afterwards immediately come out again by the same gate. Thenit was that Harris called the man a silly ass. That delayed us a day,and cost Harris forty marks.
I followed suit at Carlsruhe, by stealing a bicycle. I did not mean tosteal the bicycle; I was merely trying to be useful. The train was onthe point of starting when I noticed, as I thought, Harris's bicyclestill in the goods van. No one was about to help me. I jumped into thevan and hauled it out, only just in time. Wheeling it down the platformin triumph, I came across Harris's bicycle, standing against a wallbehind some milk-cans. The bicycle I had secured was not Harris's, butsome other man's.
It was an awkward situation. In England, I should have gone to thestationmaster and explained my mistake. But in Germany they are notcontent with your explaining a little matter of this sort to one man:they take you round and get you to explain it to about half a dozen; andif any one of the half dozen happens not to be handy, or not to have timejust then to listen to you, they have a habit of leaving you over for thenight to finish your explanation the next morning. I thought I wouldjust put the thing out of sight, and then, without making any fuss orshow, take a short walk. I found a wood shed, which seemed just the veryplace, and was wheeling the bicycle into it when, unfortunately, a red-hatted railway official, with the airs of a retired field-marshal, caughtsight of me and came up. He said:
"What are you doing with that bicycle?"
I said: "I am going to put it in this wood shed out of the way." I triedto convey by my tone that I was performing a kind and thoughtful action,for which the railway officials ought to thank me; but he wasunresponsive.
"Is it your bicycle?" he said.
"Well, not exactly," I replied.
"Whose is it?" he asked, quite sharply.
"I can't tell you," I answered. "I don't know whose bicycle it is."
"Where did you get it from?" was his next question. There was asuspiciousness about his tone that was almost insulting.
"I got it," I answered, with as much calm dignity as at the moment Icould assume, "out of the train."
"The fact is," I continued, frankly, "I have made a mistake."
He did not allow me time to finish. He merely said he thought so too,and blew a whistle.
Recollection of the subsequent proceedings is not, so far as I amconcerned, amusing. By a miracle of good luck--they say Providencewatches over certain of us--the incident happened in Carlsruhe, where Ipossess a German friend, an official of some importance. Upon what wouldhave been my fate had the station not been at Carlsruhe, or had my friendbeen from home, I do not care to dwell; as it was I got off, as thesaying is, by the skin of my teeth. I should like to add that I leftCarlsruhe without a stain upon my character, but that would not be thetruth. My going scot free is regarded in police circles there to thisday as a grave miscarriage of justice.
But all lesser sin sinks into insignificance beside the lawlessness ofGeorge. The bicycle incident had thrown us all into confusion, with theresult that we lost George altogether. It transpired subsequently thathe was waiting for us outside the police court; but this at the time wedid not know. We thought, maybe, he had gone on to Baden by himself; andanxious to get away from Carlsruhe, and not, perhaps, thinking out thingstoo clearly, we jumped into the next train that came up and proceededthither. When George, tired of waiting, returned to the station, hefound us gone and he found his luggage gone. Harris had his ticket; Iwas acting as banker to the party, so that he had in his pocket only somesmall change. Excusing himself upon these grounds, he thereuponcommenced deliberately a career of crime that, reading it later, as setforth baldly in the official summons, made the hair of Harris and myselfalmost to stand on end.
German travelling, it may be explained, is somewhat complicated. You buya ticket at the station you start from for the place you want to go to.You might think this would enable you to get there, but it does not. Whenyour train comes up, you attempt to swarm into it; but the guardmagnificently waves you away. Where are your credentials? You show himyour ticket. He explains to you that by itself that is of no servicewhatever; you have only taken the first step towards travelling; you mustgo back to the booking-office and get in addition what is called a"schnellzug ticket." With this you return, thinking your troubles over.You are allowed to get in, so far so good. But you must not sit downanywhere, and you must not stand still, and you must not wander about.You must take another ticket, this time what is called a "platz ticket,"which entitles you to a place for a certain distance.
What a man could do who persisted in taking nothing but the one ticket, Ihave often wondered. Would he be entitled to run behind the train on thesix-foot way? Or could he stick a label on himself and get into thegoods van? Again, what could be done with the man who, having taken hisschnellzug ticket, obstinately refused, or had not the money to take aplatz ticket: would they let him lie in the umbrella rack, or allow himto hang himself out of the window?
To return to George, he had just sufficient money to take a third-classslow train ticket to Baden, and that was all. To avoid theinquisitiveness of the guard, he waited till the train was moving, andthen jumped in.
That was his first sin:
(a) Entering a train in motion;
(b) After being warned not to do so by an official.
Second sin:
(a) Travelling in train of superior class to that for which ticket washeld.
(b) Refusing to pay difference when demanded by an official. (Georgesays he did not "refuse"; he simply told the man he had not got it.)
Third sin:
(a) Travelling in carriage of superior class to that for which ticketwas held.
(b) Refusing to pay difference when demanded by an official. (AgainGeorge disputes the accuracy of the report. He turned his pockets out,and offered the man all he had, which was about eightpence in Germanmoney. He offered to go into a third class, but there was no
thirdclass. He offered to go into the goods van, but they would not hear ofit.)
Fourth sin:
(a) Occupying seat, and not paying for same.
(b) Loitering about corridor. (As they would not let him sit downwithout paying, and as he could not pay, it was difficult to see whatelse he could do.)
But explanations are held as no excuse in Germany; and his journey fromCarlsruhe to Baden was one of the most expensive perhaps on record.
Reflecting upon the case and frequency with which one gets into troublehere in Germany, one is led to the conclusion that this country wouldcome as a boon and a blessing to the average young Englishman. To themedical student, to the eater of dinners at the Temple, to the subalternon leave, life in London is a wearisome proceeding. The healthy Britontakes his pleasure lawlessly, or it is no pleasure to him. Nothing thathe may do affords to him any genuine satisfaction. To be in trouble ofsome sort is his only idea of bliss. Now, England affords him smallopportunity in this respect; to get himself into a scrape requires a gooddeal of persistence on the part of the young Englishman.
I spoke on this subject one day with our senior churchwarden. It was themorning of the 10th of November, and we were both of us glancing,somewhat anxiously, through the police reports. The usual batch of youngmen had been summoned for creating the usual disturbance the night beforeat the Criterion. My friend the churchwarden has boys of his own, and anephew of mine, upon whom I am keeping a fatherly eye, is by a fondmother supposed to be in London for the sole purpose of studyingengineering. No names we knew happened, by fortunate chance, to be inthe list of those detained in custody, and, relieved, we fell tomoralising upon the folly and depravity of youth.
"It is very remarkable," said my friend the churchwarden, "how theCriterion retains its position in this respect. It was just so when Iwas young; the evening always wound up with a row at the Criterion."
"So meaningless," I remarked.
"So monotonous," he replied. "You have no idea," he continued, a dreamyexpression stealing over his furrowed face, "how unutterably tired onecan become of the walk from Piccadilly Circus to the Vine Street PoliceCourt. Yet, what else was there for us to do? Simply nothing. Sometimeswe would put out a street lamp, and a man would come round and light itagain. If one insulted a policeman, he simply took no notice. He didnot even know he was being insulted; or, if he did, he seemed not tocare. You could fight a Covent Garden porter, if you fancied yourself atthat sort of thing. Generally speaking, the porter got the best of it;and when he did it cost you five shillings, and when he did not the pricewas half a sovereign. I could never see much excitement in thatparticular sport. I tried driving a hansom cab once. That has alwaysbeen regarded as the acme of modern Tom and Jerryism. I stole it lateone night from outside a public-house in Dean Street, and the first thingthat happened to me was that I was hailed in Golden Square by an old ladysurrounded by three children, two of them crying and the third one halfasleep. Before I could get away she had shot the brats into the cab,taken my number, paid me, so she said, a shilling over the legal fare,and directed me to an address a little beyond what she called NorthKensington. As a matter of fact, the place turned out to be the otherside of Willesden. The horse was tired, and the journey took us wellover two hours. It was the slowest lark I ever remember being concernedin. I tried once or twice to persuade the children to let me take themback to the old lady: but every time I opened the trap-door to speak tothem the youngest one, a boy, started screaming; and when I offered otherdrivers to transfer the job to them, most of them replied in the words ofa song popular about that period: 'Oh, George, don't you think you'regoing just a bit too far?' One man offered to take home to my wife anylast message I might be thinking of, while another promised to organise aparty to come and dig me out in the spring. When I mounted the dickey Ihad imagined myself driving a peppery old colonel to some lonesome andcabless region, half a dozen miles from where he wanted to go, and thereleaving him upon the kerbstone to swear. About that there might havebeen good sport or there might not, according to circumstances and thecolonel. The idea of a trip to an outlying suburb in charge of a nurseryfull of helpless infants had never occurred to me. No, London,"concluded my friend the churchwarden with a sigh, "affords but limitedopportunity to the lover of the illegal."
Now, in Germany, on the other hand, trouble is to be had for the asking.There are many things in Germany that you must not do that are quite easyto do. To any young Englishman yearning to get himself into a scrape,and finding himself hampered in his own country, I would advise a singleticket to Germany; a return, lasting as it does only a month, might provea waste.
In the Police Guide of the Fatherland he will find set forth a list ofthe things the doing of which will bring to him interest and excitement.In Germany you must not hang your bed out of window. He might begin withthat. By waving his bed out of window he could get into trouble beforehe had his breakfast. At home he might hang himself out of window, andnobody would mind much, provided he did not obstruct anybody's ancientlights or break away and injure any passer underneath.
In Germany you must not wear fancy dress in the streets. A Highlander ofmy acquaintance who came to pass the winter in Dresden spent the firstfew days of his residence there in arguing this question with the SaxonGovernment. They asked him what he was doing in those clothes. He wasnot an amiable man. He answered, he was wearing them. They asked himwhy he was wearing them. He replied, to keep himself warm. They toldhim frankly that they did not believe him, and sent him back to hislodgings in a closed landau. The personal testimony of the EnglishMinister was necessary to assure the authorities that the Highland garbwas the customary dress of many respectable, law-abiding Britishsubjects. They accepted the statement, as diplomatically bound, butretain their private opinion to this day. The English tourist they havegrown accustomed to; but a Leicestershire gentleman, invited to hunt withsome German officers, on appearing outside his hotel, was promptlymarched off, horse and all, to explain his frivolity at the police court.
Another thing you must not do in the streets of German towns is to feedhorses, mules, or donkeys, whether your own or those belonging to otherpeople. If a passion seizes you to feed somebody else's horse, you mustmake an appointment with the animal, and the meal must take place in someproperly authorised place. You must not break glass or china in thestreet, nor, in fact, in any public resort whatever; and if you do, youmust pick up all the pieces. What you are to do with the pieces when youhave gathered them together I cannot say. The only thing I know forcertain is that you are not permitted to throw them anywhere, to leavethem anywhere, or apparently to part with them in any way whatever.Presumably, you are expected to carry them about with you until you die,and then be buried with them; or, maybe, you are allowed to swallow them.
In German streets you must not shoot with a crossbow. The German law-maker does not content himself with the misdeeds of the average man--thecrime one feels one wants to do, but must not: he worries himselfimagining all the things a wandering maniac might do. In Germany thereis no law against a man standing on his head in the middle of the road;the idea has not occurred to them. One of these days a German statesman,visiting a circus and seeing acrobats, will reflect upon this omission.Then he will straightway set to work and frame a clause forbidding peoplefrom standing on their heads in the middle of the road, and fixing afine. This is the charm of German law: misdemeanour in Germany has itsfixed price. You are not kept awake all night, as in England, wonderingwhether you will get off with a caution, be fined forty shillings, or,catching the magistrate in an unhappy moment for yourself, get sevendays. You know exactly what your fun is going to cost you. You canspread out your money on the table, open your Police Guide, and plan outyour holiday to a fifty pfennig piece. For a really cheap evening, Iwould recommend walking on the wrong side of the pavement after beingcautioned not to do so. I calculate that by choosing your district andkeeping to the quiet side streets y
ou could walk for a whole evening onthe wrong side of the pavement at a cost of little over three marks.
In German towns you must not ramble about after dark "in droves." I amnot quite sure how many constitute a "drove," and no official to whom Ihave spoken on this subject has felt himself competent to fix the exactnumber. I once put it to a German friend who was starting for thetheatre with his wife, his mother-in-law, five children of his own, hissister and her _fiance_, and two nieces, if he did not think he wasrunning a risk under this by-law. He did not take my suggestion as ajoke. He cast an eye over the group.
"Oh, I don't think so," he said; "you see, we are all one family."
"The paragraph says nothing about its being a family drove or not," Ireplied; "it simply says 'drove.' I do not mean it in anyuncomplimentary sense, but, speaking etymologically, I am inclinedpersonally to regard your collection as a 'drove.' Whether the policewill take the same view or not remains to be seen. I am merely warningyou."
My friend himself was inclined to pooh-pooh my fears; but his wifethinking it better not to run any risk of having the party broken up bythe police at the very beginning of the evening, they divided, arrangingto come together again in the theatre lobby.
Another passion you must restrain in Germany is that prompting you tothrow things out of window. Cats are no excuse. During the first weekof my residence in Germany I was awakened incessantly by cats. One nightI got mad. I collected a small arsenal--two or three pieces of coal, afew hard pears, a couple of candle ends, an odd egg I found on thekitchen table, an empty soda-water bottle, and a few articles of thatsort,--and, opening the window, bombarded the spot from where the noiseappeared to come. I do not suppose I hit anything; I never knew a manwho did hit a cat, even when he could see it, except, maybe, by accidentwhen aiming at something else. I have known crack shots, winners ofQueen's prizes--those sort of men,--shoot with shot-guns at cats fiftyyards away, and never hit a hair. I have often thought that, instead ofbull's-eyes, running deer, and that rubbish, the really superior marksmanwould be he who could boast that he had shot the cat.
But, anyhow, they moved off; maybe the egg annoyed them. I had noticedwhen I picked it up that it did not look a good egg; and I went back tobed again, thinking the incident closed. Ten minutes afterwards therecame a violent ringing of the electric bell. I tried to ignore it, butit was too persistent, and, putting on my dressing gown, I went down tothe gate. A policeman was standing there. He had all the things I hadbeen throwing out of the window in a little heap in front of him, allexcept the egg. He had evidently been collecting them. He said:
"Are these things yours?"
I said: "They were mine, but personally I have done with them. Anybodycan have them--you can have them."
He ignored my offer. He said:
"You threw these things out of window."
"You are right," I admitted; "I did."
"Why did you throw them out of window?" he asked. A German policeman hashis code of questions arranged for him; he never varies them, and henever omits one.
"I threw them out of the window at some cats," I answered.
"What cats?" he asked.
It was the sort of question a German policeman would ask. I replied withas much sarcasm as I could put into my accent that I was ashamed to say Icould not tell him what cats. I explained that, personally, they werestrangers to me; but I offered, if the police would call all the cats inthe district together, to come round and see if I could recognise them bytheir yaul.
The German policeman does not understand a joke, which is perhaps on thewhole just as well, for I believe there is a heavy fine for joking withany German uniform; they call it "treating an official with contumely."He merely replied that it was not the duty of the police to help merecognise the cats; their duty was merely to fine me for throwing thingsout of window.
I asked what a man was supposed to do in Germany when woke up night afternight by cats, and he explained that I could lodge an information againstthe owner of the cat, when the police would proceed to caution him, and,if necessary, order the cat to be destroyed. Who was going to destroythe cat, and what the cat would be doing during the process, he did notexplain.
I asked him how he proposed I should discover the owner of the cat. Hethought for a while, and then suggested that I might follow it home. Idid not feel inclined to argue with him any more after that; I shouldonly have said things that would have made the matter worse. As it was,that night's sport cost me twelve marks; and not a single one of the fourGerman officials who interviewed me on the subject could see anythingridiculous in the proceedings from beginning to end.
But in Germany most human faults and follies sink into comparativeinsignificance beside the enormity of walking on the grass. Nowhere, andunder no circumstances, may you at any time in Germany walk on the grass.Grass in Germany is quite a fetish. To put your foot on German grasswould be as great a sacrilege as to dance a hornpipe on a Mohammedan'spraying-mat. The very dogs respect German grass; no German dog woulddream of putting a paw on it. If you see a dog scampering across thegrass in Germany, you may know for certain that it is the dog of someunholy foreigner. In England, when we want to keep dogs out of places,we put up wire netting, six feet high, supported by buttresses, anddefended on the top by spikes. In Germany, they put a notice-board inthe middle of the place, "Hunden verboten," and a dog that has Germanblood in its veins looks at that notice-board and walks away. In aGerman park I have seen a gardener step gingerly with felt boots on tograss-plot, and removing therefrom a beetle, place it gravely but firmlyon the gravel; which done, he stood sternly watching the beetle, to seethat it did not try to get back on the grass; and the beetle, lookingutterly ashamed of itself, walked hurriedly down the gutter, and turnedup the path marked "Ausgang."
In German parks separate roads are devoted to the different orders of thecommunity, and no one person, at peril of liberty and fortune, may goupon another person's road. There are special paths for "wheel-riders"and special paths for "foot-goers," avenues for "horse-riders," roads forpeople in light vehicles, and roads for people in heavy vehicles; waysfor children and for "alone ladies." That no particular route has yetbeen set aside for bald-headed men or "new women" has always struck me asan omission.
In the Grosse Garten in Dresden I once came across an old lady, standing,helpless and bewildered, in the centre of seven tracks. Each was guardedby a threatening notice, warning everybody off it but the person for whomit was intended.
"I am sorry to trouble you," said the old lady, on learning I could speakEnglish and read German, "but would you mind telling me what I am andwhere I have to go?"
I inspected her carefully. I came to the conclusion that she was a"grown-up" and a "foot-goer," and pointed out her path. She looked atit, and seemed disappointed.
"But I don't want to go down there," she said; "mayn't I go this way?"
"Great heavens, no, madam!" I replied. "That path is reserved forchildren."
"But I wouldn't do them any harm," said the old lady, with a smile. Shedid not look the sort of old lady who would have done them any harm.
"Madam," I replied, "if it rested with me, I would trust you down thatpath, though my own first-born were at the other end; but I can onlyinform you of the laws of this country. For you, a full-grown woman, toventure down that path is to go to certain fine, if not imprisonment.There is your path, marked plainly--_Nur fur Fussganger_, and if you willfollow my advice, you will hasten down it; you are not allowed to standhere and hesitate."
"It doesn't lead a bit in the direction I want to go," said the old lady.
"It leads in the direction you _ought_ to want to go," I replied, and weparted.
In the German parks there are special seats labelled, "Only for grown-ups" (_Nur fur Erwachsene_), and the German small boy, anxious to sitdown, and reading that notice, passes by, and hunts for a seat on whichchildren are permitted to rest; and there he seats himself, careful notto touch the w
oodwork with his muddy boots. Imagine a seat in Regent'sor St. James's Park labelled "Only for grown-ups!" Every child for fivemiles round would be trying to get on that seat, and hauling otherchildren off who were on. As for any "grown-up," he would never be ableto get within half a mile of that seat for the crowd. The German smallboy, who has accidentally sat down on such without noticing, rises with astart when his error is pointed out to him, and goes away with down-casthead, brushing to the roots of his hair with shame and regret.
Not that the German child is neglected by a paternal Government. InGerman parks and public gardens special places (_Spielplatze_) areprovided for him, each one supplied with a heap of sand. There he canplay to his heart's content at making mud pies and building sand castles.To the German child a pie made of any other mud than this would appear animmoral pie. It would give to him no satisfaction: his soul would revoltagainst it.
"That pie," he would say to himself, "was not, as it should have been,made of Government mud specially set apart for the purpose; it was normanufactured in the place planned and maintained by the Government forthe making of mud pies. It can bring no real blessing with it; it is alawless pie." And until his father had paid the proper fine, and he hadreceived his proper licking, his conscience would continue to troublehim.
Another excellent piece of material for obtaining excitement in Germanyis the simple domestic perambulator. What you may do with a"kinder-wagen," as it is called, and what you may not, covers pages ofGerman law; after the reading of which, you conclude that the man who canpush a perambulator through a German town without breaking the law wasmeant for a diplomatist. You must not loiter with a perambulator, andyou must not go too fast. You must not get in anybody's way with aperambulator, and if anybody gets in your way you must get out of theirway. If you want to stop with a perambulator, you must go to a placespecially appointed where perambulators may stop; and when you get thereyou _must_ stop. You must not cross the road with a perambulator; if youand the baby happen to live on the other side, that is your fault. Youmust not leave your perambulator anywhere, and only in certain places canyou take it with you. I should say that in Germany you could go out witha perambulator and get into enough trouble in half an hour to last youfor a month. Any young Englishman anxious for a row with the policecould not do better than come over to Germany and bring his perambulatorwith him.
In Germany you must not leave your front door unlocked after ten o'clockat night, and you must not play the piano in your own house after eleven.In England I have never felt I wanted to play the piano myself, or tohear anyone else play it, after eleven o'clock at night; but that is avery different thing to being told that you must not play it. Here, inGermany, I never feel that I really care for the piano until eleveno'clock, then I could sit and listen to the "Maiden's Prayer," or theOverture to "Zampa," with pleasure. To the law-loving German, on theother hand, music after eleven o'clock at night ceases to be music; itbecomes sin, and as such gives him no satisfaction.
The only individual throughout Germany who ever dreams of takingliberties with the law is the German student, and he only to a certainwell-defined point. By custom, certain privileges are permitted to him,but even these are strictly limited and clearly understood. Forinstance, the German student may get drunk and fall asleep in the gutterwith no other penalty than that of having the next morning to tip thepoliceman who has found him and brought him home. But for this purposehe must choose the gutters of side-streets. The German student,conscious of the rapid approach of oblivion, uses all his remainingenergy to get round the corner, where he may collapse without anxiety. Incertain districts he may ring bells. The rent of flats in theselocalities is lower than in other quarters of the town; while thedifficulty is further met by each family preparing for itself a secretcode of bell-ringing by means of which it is known whether the summons isgenuine or not. When visiting such a household late at night it is wellto be acquainted with this code, or you may, if persistent, get a bucketof water thrown over you.
Also the German student is allowed to put out lights at night, but thereis a prejudice against his putting out too many. The larky Germanstudent generally keeps count, contenting himself with half a dozenlights per night. Likewise, he may shout and sing as he walks home, uptill half-past two; and at certain restaurants it is permitted to him toput his arm round the Fraulein's waist. To prevent any suggestion ofunseemliness, the waitresses at restaurants frequented by students arealways carefully selected from among a staid and elderly classy of women,by reason of which the German student can enjoy the delights offlirtation without fear and without reproach to anyone.
They are a law-abiding people, the Germans.