must not break glass or china in the
street, nor, in fact, in any public resort whatever; and if you do, you
must pick up all the pieces. What you are to do with the pieces when you
have gathered them together I cannot say. The only thing I know for
certain is that you are not permitted to throw them anywhere, to leave
them anywhere, or apparently to part with them in any way whatever.
Presumably, you are expected to carry them about with you until you die,
and then be buried with them; or, maybe, you are allowed to swallow them.

In German streets you must not shoot with a crossbow. The German law-
maker does not content himself with the misdeeds of the average man--the
crime one feels one wants to do, but must not: he worries himself
imagining all the things a wandering maniac might do. In Germany there
is no law against a man standing on his head in the middle of the road;
the idea has not occurred to them. One of these days a German statesman,
visiting a circus and seeing acrobats, will reflect upon this omission.
Then he will straightway set to work and frame a clause forbidding people
from standing on their heads in the middle of the road, and fixing a
fine. This is the charm of German law: misdemeanour in Germany has its
fixed price. You are not kept awake all night, as in England, wondering
whether you will get off with a caution, be fined forty shillings, or,
catching the magistrate in an unhappy moment for yourself, get seven
days. You know exactly what your fun is going to cost you. You can
spread out your money on the table, open your Police Guide, and plan out
your holiday to a fifty pfennig piece. For a really cheap evening, I
would recommend walking on the wrong side of the pavement after being
cautioned not to do so. I calculate that by choosing your district and
keeping to the quiet side streets you could walk for a whole evening on
the wrong side of the pavement at a cost of little over three marks.

In German towns you must not ramble about after dark "in droves." I am
not quite sure how many constitute a "drove," and no official to whom I
have spoken on this subject has felt himself competent to fix the exact
number. I once put it to a German friend who was starting for the
theatre with his wife, his mother-in-law, five children of his own, his
sister and her _fiance_, and two nieces, if he did not think he was
running a risk under this by-law. He did not take my suggestion as a
joke.