It seems to me that the healthy Briton takes his pleasure lawlessly, or it is no pleasure to him. Nothing that he may do affords him any satisfaction. To be in trouble of some sort is his only idea of bliss.

Now in Germany, on the other hand, trouble is to be had for the asking. There are many things in Germany that you must not do that are quite easy to do and I would recommend it to any Englishman wishing to get himself in a scrape.

You must not break glass in the street nor in fact in any public resort whatever and if you do you must pick up all the pieces. What you 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 whatsoever. Presumably you are supposed to carry them with you until you die, and then be buried with them or maybe you are allowed to swallow them.

The German lawmaker 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 wondering maniac might do. In Germany there is no law against standing on your head in the middle of the road but only because this idea has no occurred to them.

One of these days a German statesman will visit a circus and on seeing acrobats, will reflect upon this omission. Then he will straight away set to work and frame a clause forbidding people standing on their heads in the middle of the road and fit a fine to it. This is the charm of German law. Every misdemeanor in Germany has its fixed price. You are not kept awake at night wondering if you'll catch the magistrate in a bad mood and you will get seven days or maybe get off with a caution. Here you know exactly how much your fun is going to cost you. You can spread your money out on the table, open your police guide and plan your holiday to a fifty penning piece. For a really cheap evening I recommend cycling on the wrong side of the pavement after being cautioned not to do so.

Another passion you must restrain in Germany is that prompting you to throw things from the window. Cats are no excuse. In my first week here I was woken incessantly by cats. One night I got mad, I collected a small arsenal, two or three hard pairs, a few pieces of coal and an odd egg. I found an empty soda water bottle on the table and on opening the window bombarded the spot from where the noise appeared to come. I do not suppose I hit anything. I never met a man who did hit a cat even when he could see it , maybe by accident when aiming at something else. I have known crack shots shoot with shotguns at cats fifty yards away and never hit a hair. I have always thought that instead of bull's eyes, running deer, and that rubbish the really superior marksman would be he who could boast he had shot a cat.

But anyway they moved off. Maybe the egg had annoyed them. I had noticed that when I picked it up it did not look a good egg and I went back to bed again thinking the matter closed. Ten minutes later there came a violent ringing of the electric bell. I tried to ignore it but it was to persistent. A policeman was standing there. He had all the things that I had thrown out the window, all except the egg. He had evidently collected them and asked me if they were mine. I said that they were but that personally I was done with them and that he could have them if he really wanted. He ignored my offer and stated that I had thrown them from the window. I admitted that he was right. He asked why I had thrown them out the window.

A German policeman has his code of questions arranged for him. He never varies them and would never think to omit one. I told him that there were cats. He asked what cats. It was sort of question a German policeman would ask. I replied with as much sarcasm I could muster in the middle of the night as that I was ashamed to say that I could not tell what cats. I explained that personally they were strangers to me but if he would be so kind as to gather all the cats in the district I would find time to come around in the morning and see if I could recognize their yawl.

The German policeman does not understand a joke which is probably on the whole a good thing because there is probably a hefty fine for joking with any German uniform. He merely replied that it was not his duty to round up cats. His duty was merely to fine me for throwing things out of the window.

But in Germany most human faults and follies sink into comparative insignificance beside the enormity of walking on the grass. Nowhere and under no circumstances may you at any time in Germany walk on the grass. Grass in Germany is quite a fetish. To put your foot on German grass would be as great a sacrilege as to dance a foxtrot on a Mohammedan's praying mat. The very dogs respect German grass, no German dog would dream of putting his paw on it. If you see a dog scampering across the grass in Germany you may know for certain that it is the dog of some unholy foreigner. In Germany they put up a notice board in the middle of the place with "Hunde Verboten" and a dog that has German blood in its veins looks at that notice board and walks away. In a German park I have seen a gardener step gingerly with felt boots on to a grass plot and removing there from a beetle, place it gingerly but firmly on the gravel. Which done, he stood sternly and watched the beetle, to see that it did not try to get back onto the grass and what’s more the beetle looked utterly ashamed of itself and turned up the path marked "Ausgang"

In Germany you must not leave your front door unlocked after ten o'clock at night and you must not play the piano in your own house after eleven. At home I never felt that I wanted to play the piano myself or to hear anyone play it and never after eleven. But that is a very different thing being told that you must not play it. Here in Germany, I never feel that I really care for the piano until round eleven o'clock. Then I could sit round and listen to overture after overture with pleasure. To the law loving German music ceases to be music after eleven. It becomes a sin and gives him no satisfaction.

The only individual throughout Germany who dreams of taking liberties with the law is the German student and he only to a certain well defined point. The German student may get drunk and may shout and sing as he walks home having been up till half past two. And in certain restaurants it is permitted to him to put his arm round the fraulein's waist and enjoy the delights of flirtation without fear and without reproach to anyone.

They are a law abiding people the Germans.

The one thing in Germany that never fails to charm and fascinate me is the German dog. At home one grows tired of the old breeds, one knows so well. The mastiff, the collie, the terrier (black, white or rough haired but always quarrelsome) , the bulldog and the Doberman. Never anything new. Now in Germany you get variety. You come across dogs the like of which you have never seen before. That until you hear them bark you do not know are dogs. It is so fresh, so interesting. Our attention was drawn to a dog in Bonn. It suggested a cross between a codfish and a poodle.

I do not know what the breeders idea is, At present he retains his secret. It was suggested that he was aiming at a griffin. There is much to bear out this theory and indeed in one or two cases I have come across, success on these lines seems to have been almost achieved. Yet I cannot bring myself to believe that such are anything more than mere accidents. The German is practical, and I fail to see the object of a griffin. If mere quaintness is required there is already the Dachshund. What more is needed? Besides about a house a griffin would be so inconvenient. People would be continually stepping on its tail.

My own idea is that the Germans are trying for a mermaid, which they will train to catch fish. For your German does not encourage laziness in any living thing. He likes to see his dogs work, and the German dog loves to work. Of that there can be no doubt. The life of a dog at home must be a misery to him. Imagine a strong, active and intelligent being, of exceptionally energetic temperament, condemned to spend twenty four hours a day in absolute idleness! How would you like it yourself. No wonder he yearns for the unattainable and gets himself into trouble generally. Now the German dog on the other had , has plenty to occupy his mind. Is his behavior within the limits of toleration and is he actually allowed to walk on that patch of grass.

They are law abiding, the German dogs are.

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