MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN GERMANY. 57 



pend their murderous wires over our heads, a constant 

 menace, like the sword of Damocles. In Berlin, however, 

 the wires have been carried underground from the start, 

 and no difficulty has been experienced. Instead of adding 

 new ugliness to the streets, the arc-lights of Berlin are 

 things of beauty, an artistic embellishment to the city. 

 Unter den Linden is probably the most brilliantly and beau- 

 tifully illuminated street in the world. Along each side 

 and down the centre, where there is a double row of trees 

 similar to Commonwealth avenue in Boston, the arc-lights 

 are set even more closely together than ordinary gas lamps, 

 and the effect at night is that of great strings of white, 

 gleaming pearls. The posts consist of graceful iron stand- 

 ards, with tasteful ornamentation and curving over at the 

 top. Here the globe is suspended, inclosed in a coarse 

 network, so that, in case it breaks, the pieces of glass may 

 not fall on passers. From the globe there hangs a light 

 chain, with a ring in the end, and there are counterbalanc- 

 ing weights inside the post, so that the lamp is quickly 

 and easily attended to by pulling it down with a light stick, 

 with a hook in the end a great improvement, in the 

 economy of time and trouble, over our clumsy methods 

 of either climbing the post or lowering the light by an 

 unwieldy and ugly crane. 



The incandescent light is very extensively used. It il- 

 luminates all the first class theatres, halls, hotels, and many 

 stores and private houses. 



The telephone-service is admirable, as is testified by the 

 public appreciation, there being over 10,000 instruments 

 in use in Berlin. There are no private telephone compa- 

 nies in Germany, the telephone, like the telegraph, being 

 a branch of the postal-service. The price for telephone 

 service is low, the annual charge for an instrument being 

 one hundred and twenty marks a year, or something less 



