Show NO WHISTLING IN BERLIN one of the many nolay den in the german ettya streeta Str ceta the berlin police are permanently under instructions to repress whistling whether or utilitarian with the utmost rigor and display UD relaxing energy in carrying out their orders to the letter whistling in public is not only repugnant to the german apprehensions of di holibero Bil dung or higher culture bays a writer in the london telegraph but actually constitutes a minor misdemeanor and as such is punishable by fine with the inevitable alternative of imprisonment the former penalty was recently incurred by a hall porter of a fashionable hotel unter den linden who persisted in sounding his whistle to summon a cab for a client of the establishment after having been forbidden to do so by an agent of the law appealing from the sentence of the police authorities to the judgment of a civil court the porter pleaded that from time immemorial it had been the custom in berlin to whistle for drosch kies once twice thrice or four times according to the relative quality or capacity of the vehicle required this plea however the judge rejected as irrelevant to the point at issue to wit the illegality of whistling in a public thoroughfare and further mulched mulcted the appellant in the sum of three marks for making a noise that disturbed the repose of the public the prussian police authorities to their credit and praise be it admitted are inflexible in prohibiting the performance for mance of street bands they only grant organ grinding license to a few infirm old soldiers who moreover aro not permitted to work their instruments of torture in roadways or sidewalks but only in certain prescribed open places or in tha court yards of private houses at the special request of their inmates on the other hand they are over tolerant with regard to all manner of street cries and to the distracting tr clamor raised hy the children on their way to and from school at certain hours 0 the day prussia is conspicuously a music loving and a music making country As the inhabitants of its cities however for the most part live in flats they are not allowed to play or sing in their appart ments after ten p m unless with the express consent of the persons residing immediately above or below them whose innate right to enjoy unbroken rest 0 o nights they are bound to respect nor may they keep on their premises any furred or feathered animals addicted to the nocturnal utter ance of sounds that murder sleep and give rise to irritation oi temper the conscientious doff prompted by a sense of duty to bark all night if notoriously vociferous has to be severely eliminated from the precincts of a prussian townhouse |