Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1918-12-14

bent upon pleasure, but there was no
reflection of 1t on their faces, which
we're pale, haggard and listless. Their
eyes were dull and weary, or unnat-
urally bright and feverish. The rough
est element IN the crowd were the
quite young boys and girls; their elders
seemed too detected and Indifferent to
quarrel. As they shuffied and swayed
along they appeared to feel the need
Of supporting themselves and keeping
their balance by sheer weight of num-
bers, with sudden shock, the
stranger realized that the greater part
of this tragic multitude was in an ad-
,yanced stage of intoXication. For, al
though a square meal has been unob.
tainable by fair means in Berlin for
at least two years. there is still plenty
of liquor, adulterated to be sure. but
all the more dangerous for that, and
potent enough to supefy underfed and
ifEclad people intent upon forgetting
their misery and fears.
Many Fall in Street
My informant walked on down the
street. All at once poorly dressed,
elderly man in front of him stumbled,
reeled and rolled into the gutter. No
one in the crowd took the slightest
notice. The people passed on leaving
where he lay. A little farther on a
young woman dropped suddenly in
exactly the same way. She also was
left lying where she fell. and the in
from the crowd. who appeared to re-
gard it as a perfectly ordinary nat
ural occurrence.
When. a few minutes later. another
had been drinking, fell in the street
almost at the feet Of a policeman who
started stolidly away and made no
effort to help him, my informant stop
ped and inquired the reason for this
strange indifference. The policeman
merely shrugged his shoulders. They
often fall like that" he said Some
times it is intoXiCation, sometimes
starvation, sometimes sickness. And
often it is all three together. We can
do nothing. There is no place to take
them to. The hospitals are fun. The
jails are full. So what would you
have us do?"
German Capital Gruesome
Peering behind the curtain of life in
Berlin today is a rather gruesome oc-
cupation. But the spectacle presented
by the German capital in the daytime
is likewise anything but cheerful,
though it lacks the macabre con-
trast between dissipation and misery,
which is so characteristic of nocturnal
Berlin, and which made such a deep
impression on my acquaintance that
ne declares he will never in all his life
forget this terrible vision of men and
women falling unheeded in the dark
street to the strains of gay waltz
music and the crowd pressing duly on
almost over their PROSTATE bodies.
The most striking feature of the
Berlin streets by day is the multi ude
of rough, ragged children-boys and
girls of all ages from four to fourteen
left entirely without surveillance
and to their own devices. Since the
outbreak of various epidemiCs-ty
phoid, cholera, dysentery and grip
the schools have been almost contin-
ually closed. The fathers of most OF
these children have either already
| been killed in the war or are still serv
ing at the front; their mothers wher
they have not sucCumbed to tempta
ton and deserted them altogether, are
working in munition factories and un
able to look after them. Their fate Is
truly tragic.
Murders by Children
Lack of food has retarded their ply.
steal and mental development, while
freedom from restraint and the bac
examples constantly before their eye:
have awakened precocious criminal in
stincts. Robberies, and even murders
are not infrequently committed IL
l Berlin by boys and girls of thirteeI
and fourteen. The sight of these un
fortunate children, in their ragged