ice when
you engage her, and when she leaves you, before she may take another
place. When you engage her she must be _angemeldet_ too, in order that
she may be charged with her proper insurance tax. This amounts to about
five dollars a year; the employer pays one-half, the servant the other.
Many employers pay it all. This entitles the servant to treatment at the
dispensary or in the hospital if she is ill. The police are very careful
of her comfort, and pay a visit to the house in which she is employed to
see that her room is big enough, airy enough, warmed in winter, and that
her bed is comfortable! She has a long list of "rights" including so
many loaves of black bread and so many bottles of beer per week; and she
dare not be offended if you keep everything under lock and key.

You have not yet finished your _Anmeldung_ if you keep a dog, for he
must be registered, too, and you pay highly for the luxury. The
_Polizei_ decides when you may and may not play on your piano or sing.
Before nine in the morning, after nine at night, all musical instruments
are taboo. The sacred sleeping hour after dinner, from two to four, must
also be observed in silence in Berlin. Nothing dare interfere with the
after-dinner nap; even the banks are closed from one to two, or even
three. You write to the _Polizei_ in Germany where the Englishman writes
to the _Times_. I remember a perfect avalanche of anonymous cards in
Darmstadt because a child in our house would practise with her windows
open and neighbours thought it was the _Hofopernsaengerin_ Howard.

The intricacies of paying your taxes take some study. Foreigners must
pay taxes on money earned in the country; town and county taxes are
payable every three months, on alternate months, in two different parts
of the town. You arrive at the _Staedtische Halle_ to pay your town
taxes, and you are very lucky if, after picking out the right month, you
succeed in hitting the day when the place is open. A small sign on the
locked door may greet you: "Closed on the ninth and fifteenth of every
month." If day and month are right, you may easily strike the wrong
hour, for town taxes are payable, say, from eight to ten A. M., and two
to five P. M., while county ones are from nine to twelve, and four to
seven. There are church taxes besides, very small if you are Catholic
and larger if you are Evangelical. I succeeded in getting out of these
by declaring myself neither. Unfortunately I did not kno