From "Three Men on the Bummel" by Jerome K Jerome (and courtesy of
www.gutenburg.org). It seems that the problems of segregation are not
at all new - at least in Germany.
In German parks separate roads are devoted to the different orders
of the community, and no one person, at peril of liberty and
fortune, may go upon another person's road. There are special
paths for "wheel-riders" and special paths for "foot-goers,"
avenues for "horse-riders," roads for people in light vehicles, and
roads for people in heavy vehicles; ways for children and for
"alone ladies." That no particular route has yet been set aside
for bald-headed men or "new women" has always struck me as an
omission.
In the Grosse Garten in Dresden I once came across an old lady,
standing, helpless and bewildered, in the centre of seven tracks.
Each was guarded by a threatening notice, warning everybody off it
but the person for whom it was intended.
"I am sorry to trouble you," said the old lady, on learning I could
speak English and read German, "but would you mind telling me what
I am and where I have to go?"
I inspected her carefully. I came to the conclusion that she was a
"grown-up" and a "foot-goer," and pointed out her path. She looked
at it, and seemed disappointed.
"But I don't want to go down there," she said; "mayn't I go this
way?"
"Great heavens, no, madam!" I replied. "That path is reserved for
children."
"But I wouldn't do them any harm," said the old lady, with a smile.
She did not look the sort of old lady who would have done them any
harm.
"Madam," I replied, "if it rested with me, I would trust you down
that path, though my own first-born were at the other end; but I
can only inform you of the laws of this country. For you, a full-
grown woman, to venture down that path is to go to certain fine, if
not imprisonment. There is your path, marked plainly--Nur fur
Fussganger, and if you will follow my advice, you will hasten down
it; you are not allowed to stand here and hesitate."
"It doesn't lead a bit in the direction I want to go," said the old
lady.
"It leads in the direction you OUGHT to want to go," I replied, and
we parted.