Page:In defense of Harriet Shelley, and other essays.djvu/267

 THE GERMAN CHICAGO

cover before they get there. The conductor will collect your fare over again every few miles, and give you a ticket which he hasn t apparently kept any record of, and you keep it till an inspector comes aboard by and by and tears a corner off it (wiiich he does not keep), then you throw the ticket away and get ready to buy another. Brains are of no value when you are trying to navigate Berlin in a horse- car. When the ablest of Brooklyn s editors was here on a visit he took a horse-car in the early morn ing, and wore it out trying to go to a point in the center of the city. He was on board all day and spent many dollars in fares, and then did not arrive at the place which he had started to go to. This is the most thorough way to see Berlin, but it is also the most expensive.

But there are excellent features about the car system, nevertheless. The car will not stop for you to get on or off, except at certain places a block or two apart where there is a sign to indicate that that is a halting-station. This system saves many bones. There are twenty places inside the car; when these seats are filled, no more can enter. Four or five persons may stand on each platform the law de crees the number and when these standing-places are all occupied the next applicant is refused. As there is no crowding, and as no rowdyism is allowed, women stand on the platforms as well as the men; they often stand there when there are vacant seats inside, for these places are comfortable, there being little or no jolting. A native tells me that when the first car was put on, thirty or forty years ago, the

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