MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN GERMANY. 55 



most imperceptibly make a tremendous drain upon the ner- 

 vous energy of the population, are reduced to a minimum. 



We occasionally hear the Germans spoken of as " slow 

 going," but that epithet would better apply to the insular 

 English. There is probably no nation more thoroughly 

 imbued with the spirit of progress than Germany. It is 

 remarkable, the quickness with which the Germans seize 

 upon a great modern invention as soon as its utility has 

 been demonstrated, adapt it to their wants, improve upon 

 it and popularize it by giving it the maximum of cheapness 

 and efficiency. We Americans, fertile in resource and in- 

 ventive as we are, are too apt to content ourselves with 

 makeshifts, looking too much to cheapness at the expense 

 of real efficiency ; we are too ready to experiment upon the 

 public at the cost of its convenience, and the result is of- 

 ten a popular disgust with a valuable improvement that 

 really delays its final adoption. It is therefore at least a 

 question whether Germany does not make fully as rapid 

 progress by her policy of insisting upon having things well 

 and thoroughly done at the start. 



The principal streets of Berlin are nearly all paved with 

 asphalt, and they are such marvels of cleanliness and 

 smoothness that one feels the same respect for them as for 

 a nice drawing room, and scruples to litter them even with 

 a scrap of paper. The most frequented ones are literally 

 washed and scrubbed every night ; after being wet down 

 a few men or boys proceed along the road, pushing before 

 them pieces of board set diagonally on a pole, with a strip 

 of rubber on the lower side. The mud is thus transferred 

 from the course of one man to another, and finally left in 

 the gutter, whence it is removed. The consequent free- 

 dom of the city from dust is very marked. The smooth- 

 ness of the pavement affords immense relief in diminishing 

 the confusing noise and jar of the streets. Waking early 



