nd in Berlin
scarcely a dozen well-turned-out private carriages, outside the
imperial equipages, which are always superbly horsed and beautifully
turned out; so my eyes tell me at least, and I have watched the
streets carefully for months. The minor details of a properly turned-out
carriage (bits, chains, liveries, saddle-cloths, and so on) are
still unknown here. I have had the privilege of driving and riding
some of the horses in the imperial stables; and I have seen all of
them at one time or another being exercised in harness and under the
saddle. I have never driven a better-mannered four, or ridden more
perfectly broken saddle-horses. There are three hundred and twenty-six
horses in his Majesty's stables, and for a private stable of its size
it has no equal in the world. I may add, too, that there is probably
no better "whip" in the world to-day, whether with two horses, four
horses, or six horses, than the gentleman who trains the harness
horses in the imperial stables. This German coachman would be a
revelation at a horse show in either New York or London. If the
citizens of Berlin were as well-mannered as the horses in the imperial
stables, this would be the most elegant capital in the world. It is to
be regretted that his Majesty's very accomplished master of the horse
cannot also hold the position of censor morum to the citizens of
Berlin. Individual prowess in the details of cosmopolitan etiquette
has not reached a high level, but in all matters of mere house-keeping
there are no better municipal housewives than these German cities and
towns.

As a further example, the statues of Berlin are carefully cleaned in
the spring, but what statues! With the exception of the Lessing, the
Goethe, and the Great Elector statues, the statue of Frederick the
Great, and the reclining statues of the late emperor and empress, by
Begas, and one or two others, one sees at once that these citizens are
no more capable of ornamenting their city than of dressing themselves.

Poor Bismarck! Grotesque figures (men, women, animals) surround the
base of his statue in Berlin, in Leipsic; and in Hamburg, clad in a
corrugated golf costume, with a colossal two-handed sword in front of
him, he is a melancholy figure, gazing out over a tumble-down beer-garden.
At Wannsee, near Berlin, there is, I must admit, a really fine
bust of Bismarck. On a solid square pedestal of granite, covered with
ivy and surrounded by the whispering, or sighing