The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1919-09-22

the European country with LOe pest transportation facilities is no un- mixed pleasure, as the correspond ent of The London Times" going from Cologne to Berlin, has found out to his sorrow. He describes his experiences as follows:
 ''Aue einsteigen! !''-the American courier from Coblenz handed his last mailbag in at the carriage windpw,- q group of hatles girls threw kisses to a windowful of the British army of occupation, without exception in pres ent-day Rhineland, and the express steamed automatically out of Cologne station and under the huge girders of the Hohenzollern bridge.
 There had been the customary feverish rush of German men, women and children for the carriage - a fight from which the men always emerge as the victors. There had been the same old platform crowd of Tommies and Jockss perfectly happy and at home in England-on-the- Rhine, the same old immaculate R. T. O., and military police, and, in ad- dition, there had been a fair amount of that new and wonderful thing which the general routine orders call fraternizing.
 Manners Change at Frontier.
 I spent the first few minutes of the journey Berllnward chatting and smoking in the corridor with a group of young officers of the Lowland Di- vision going home to their billets in Solingen. At Ohlige they got out; and then came the first rude intima- ton that I was crossing the threshold into another country-a new, strange, different Germany. For immediately we had left OhHgs behind the con- ductor's face and manners changed; tearing down the label Reserve aux Officers with a gesture of sudden defiance, he exclaimed, That doesn't apply here; we're in Germany now!'' And so we were.
 A number of Teutons with raucous voices and cheap cigars appeared, and the conductor proceeded with the real business of Iife-the making of money. During the night he must have made a good deal For why go to the expense of a hrst-class ticket in a democratic land where the con ductor knows his place and his line of least resistance? One quickly finds the up-to-date Teuton is no respeCter of class distinctions. especially on the railway. He achieves his ends by a little preliminary aggressiveness (which can be given a would-be hu- morous turn in case he really meets his match.D a lavish use of the el- bows. and finally a shameless talent for bribery. The honesJer folk. prin- cipaIly the women, spend the night in the corridors, standing in sort or drowse amid piles of baggage and all the horrors of the corridor traffic.
 \ Pilifcring officer.
 My vis-a-vis from Elberfeld to Bic lefeld was a commercial traveller, an e.x-officer. who waved before me a bottle of Berncasuer Doktor and spoke thickly and vehemently of the glories of the old regime and the scandalous arrogance and corruptness of the workers of Germany In Bic lefeld. where I joined the American courier over coffee and biscuits, the ex-officer finished his bottle of Mo selle and disappeared, taking my macintosh with him.
 Somewhere east of Hanover I woke to find the compartments filled with a medley of people who had all evil dently made their peace with the conductor. Opposite me was a pallid. ,istless boy-soIdier. in threadbare
 
 the Rhineland so1diery. Beside him a perspirinE old man was leading a discussion-on the miseries of travel in the Fatherland. He recited the details of waiting and struggling at the barrier, the expenses incurred in travelling first class express on a third class ordinary ticket and the wholesale robbery that went on with regard to luggage. He inva riably carried his trunks himself, so as not to lose sight of them for a second. He glared around at us all whimsi- cally as he spoke.
 Noticing that I was attentive, he told me stories of the selfshness of people nowadays; of prohteers; of the lady who occupies a ffrst-class com partment alone with a lap dog. which : she feeds on chocolate at a mark a InOrseI, while the corridor outside Is packed with weary people, crippled | soldiers some of them; of the damage l done to railway property; of the cloth ! torn from carriage seats for use as | clothing; of the homeless ones who | sleep in the waiting rooms of the big i stations; of the fortunes made from stolen property.
 i A further spell of sleep was impos- i Sible before the FTledriChStraSSe ter l minus was reached. Driving through 1 the quiet streets of Berlin, now in So many ways a mock metropolis. | yawned nightly and dozed off, with a | peculiarly offensive neIange of mo- | tOr-fuel smells in my nOstrils.
 | \ Changed City.
 One need not be long in Berlin tc | discover that a great change has l come over the city, and this not to its 1 advantage. The immense number oi | street hawkers dealing in all sorts o1
 stolen property, such as boots, under 1 clothing, jewelry, and, indeed, wares | of the most Heterogeneous descrip- | ton, have given a new aspect to thor l oughfares into which such petty trad l CTS were formerly never allowed. Side by side with these are to bt seen vendors Of articles obtained by surreptitious means, which. though J not to be classified as thefts. realIy come under the category of Illicit | trading, since they are often due tc
 breach or evasion of the Food Con.
 troller's regulations. Needless to say there are also many mendicants seek
 ing by the public exhibition of theil