It is evident that the orderliness of Berlin is enforced orderliness and not voluntary orderliness. Both pedestrians and drivers of all sorts of vehicles, take all that is theirs and as much more as possible. There is none of the give and take, and innate love of fair play and instinctive wish to give the other fellow a chance, so noticeable in London streets, whether on the sidewalks or in the roadway. There is a general chip-on-the-shoulder attitude in Prussia, which may be said, I think not unfairly, to be evident in all ranks, from their recent foreign diplomacy, down to the pedestrians and drivers.
Many people whom I have met, not only foreigners but Germans from other parts of Germany, are loud in their denunciations of the Berliners. "Frech" and "roh" are words often used about them. There is a surly malice of speech and manner among the working classes, that seems to indicate a wish to atone for political impotence, by braggart impudence to those whom they regard as superior. When we played horse as children, we champed the wooden bit, shied, and balked and kicked, and the worse we behaved the more spirited horses we thought ourselves. There is a certain social and political radicalism verging upon anarchy, which plays at life in much the same way, with no better reason, and with little better result. Shying, balking, and kicking, and champing the political bit, are only spirited to the childish.
Their awkward and annoying attentions to women alone on the streets; their staring and gaping; their rudeness in pushing and shoving; the general underbred look, the slouching gait, the country-store clothes, hats, and boots; the fearful and wonderful combinations of raiment; the sweetbread complexions, as of men under-exercised and not sufficiently aired and scrubbed; their stiff courtesy to one another when they recognize acquaintances with hat-sweeping bows; their fierce gobbling in the restaurants; their lack of small services and attentions to their own women when they go about in public with them; their selfish disregard of others in public places, their giving and taking of hats, coats, sticks, and umbrellas at the garde-robes of the theatres, for example; their habit of straggling about in the middle of the streets, like the chickens and geese on a country road: all these things I have noted too, but I must admit the surprising personal conclusion that I have grown to like the people. A good pair of shoulders and an engaging smile go far to mitigate these nuisances. It makes for good sense in this matter of criticism always to bear in mind that delicious piece of humor of the psalmist: "Let the righteous rather smite me friendly; and reprove me. But let not their precious balms break my head." The "precious balms" of the lofty and righteous critic are not of much value when they merely break heads.