GERMANY: Notes, Nov. 29, 1926

• Share

"Cooganing." Charles Spencer Chaplin made Jackie Coogan by co-starring him in The Kid. Therein Jackie ran ahead throwing stones through windows. Charlie followed as a glazier, repaired the windows, reaped comedy pelf. Last week The Kid was shown at the millenium-old Hartz Mountain village of Wernigerode, seat of an academy for hochgeboren young ladies. The young ladies were not allowed to see The Kid, but soon their windows tinkled in fragments as did many another. No glazier appeared, but subsequently one Thanhauser Rothschild, insignificant insurance agent, was arrested and confessed to "Cooganing" the windows after viewing The Kid, that he might persuade householders to buy from him window glass insurance.

"Schund und Schmutz." Herr Doktor Wilhelm Kuelz, Minister of Interior, introduced before the Reichstag last week his Schundund Schmutz (Trash and Smut) bill creating a committee of five censors, the adverse vote of any four of which would suffice to suppress any book or magazine. Straightway the Prussian Academy of Fine Arts, famous because it snubbed Hermann Sudermann* by not asking him to become a member of its new literature department, and was snubbed by Gerhart Hauptmann† who declined the honor (TIME, June 7), made haste last week to protest the new censorship bill in a manifesto signed by such "advanced" writers as Georg Kaiser, Bernhard Kellerman, Heinrich Mann, Thomas Mann. Inverse Income Tax. Signor Mattia Battistini, tolerably good Italian baritone, appealed to the tax collector of Duisburg (Rhineland) last week, to be classified as a "well-known singer," and deposed under oath: "My successful career as a singer has extended over 50 years."

Shrewd, canny, hard to wheedle, the tax collector of Duisburg yielded only after much persuasion. From "ordinary singers" he is empowered to collect a 20% municipal tax on concert receipts; from "well-known singers" he may collect only 8%.

Chivalry. Prince Eitel Friedrich, second son of Wilhelm II, resigned last week as Grand Master of the Order of the Knights of St. John of Malta. Prince Hohenlohe-Langenburg, Grand Master ad interim, accepted the Prince's resignation with the following eulogy: "Your Royal Highness' resignation is accepted because our Grand Master must be 'as white as the lilies of the field [and Prince Eitel has just divorced sensationally his wife (TIME, Nov. 1)]. .-. . Your honor is unstained; your chivalry alone . . . prompted your decision."

Amid a frenzy of monarchial loyalty the German knights elected Prince Eitel to honorary membership in their order, and prepared to elect as Grand Master Prince Adalbert, third son of Wilhelm of Doom.