DANCING AND STARVING.

Auckland Star, Volume L, Issue 105, 3 May 1919, Page 7

DANCING AND STARVING.

THE PLIGHT OF HAMBURGSQUEEZED DRY OF FORMER OPUIjENCE. •Before the war there was no German lity which was more closely connected »ith England by commercial and social ies than Hamburg; and perhaps no Jcrman city is now pondering more rue- : ully upon the dolorous issue of Gcrnany's design forcibly to grasp the jrorld's trade. Hamburg's warehouses lie locked and silent; the Elbe may run to the sea, but not the ships on its surface; and what activity there may be on the wharves is preparatory to the delivery of shipping to the Allies. At first sight, indeed, Hamburg seems busy and cheerful enough. The streets are crowded and the shops are full; folks move briskly over the snow, and look well clad and well fed. On the Alater the steamboats ply through lanes kept open in the ice, and nearer the shore persons are skating and children sliding. A DESOLATE CITY. It does not take long, however, to realise that Hamburg is a city squeezed dry of her former opulence. The apparatus of wealth—wharves, 6hips, warehouses, offices —alone remains. The city suggests a community of boes pent in their hive, powerless to issue forth to fill their combs, and nourishing themselves barely upon the last drops ot their stored food. Thn shops indeed are full, but full of substitutes. In a ladies' clothing store there are certainly cloaks and dresses and stockings, but the best are only made of a mixture of wool or sfcoddy with substitutes, the cheaper of paper! "A little rain," a rrank assistant said, "and the paper clothes lose all their shape. A little wind, and they lose ail their warmth." A man may have a half-wool suit made t<) his measure in a big store—'but once in the year only, and in return for ,C3o aud a clothes coupon. In the bootmakers' elegant windows ' are wooden shoes, rope shoes, shoes with J wooden soles and straw uppers. The ! confectioner shows a few pink sweets or 'a tray, and a few biscuits; but the for 'nier are (id apiece, the latter 12/ a pound. Germany's present chaos is mirrorcu in the streets. Here is a soldier stil serving with whatever colours arc now Germany's; to demonstrate liis glorioui freedom he slings h'js ritle upside down Here is ft demobilised soldier; he stil !w<>ars his field-grey uniform, but hai lehanged his military cap for a bowlei i bat. I Here is a woman wearing a cloal nuule from the iield-grey overcoat of he: husband or brother: here is a stiff fellon in his well-cut mufti, an ex-officer by hi carriage and half-defiant, half-suepiciou look. An untidy squad of soldiers trail by, without step, without dressing— I barely retaining any corporate natur whatever. -Suddenly the brief clatter of machin< guns. Persons ask: "'ls it an affair? Ar the Spartacus men ahroad?" But no on cares very much, not even when a lorr •■lied with armed civilians hurries b; nfl learns later that troops were merel "sting a machine-gun by firing into tr ir, and that a few rifles had been issu< ) civilians, doubtless pillars of the ne emocracy. DEJECTED PROCESSION. A band ie heard in the distance, and roeently tho head of a procession comee lto view. The men move in fours; at ltervala are banners and more bands; . is a slow serpent of slouching, deleted men in seedy overcoats and shabby eld grey. The column takes six minutes d pass, and must number 2,000 souls, tit no one cares. Jt is only one more einonstration of the unemployed, delanding a further increase in their ,-ee-kly dole. From a doorway comes a peculiar reek —sour, bitter, suggestive of base comjromise betwen wholesome victuals and rheer refuse. It is the entrance of a lommunal kitchen where thousands daily ■at tJieir one hot midday meal of po;ato anil mangold-wurzul coup, made bitter by vetches and thickened by :hemieals. Inside are great cauldrons whence the soup is ladled. The fumes, as the lids ire lifted, wreath the room. A queue of women and girls wait to carry their portions home in pails. At the benches bachelors —ageing, respectable, blackcoated mcn —old spinsters and truculent ex-soldiers, claw the hot mess into their mouths. The kitchen has a larder or storeroom, where the materials for the next lay are kept. It is a damp cellar, in a corner of which, half confined by wooden planks, lies a sprawling heap of mangold wiirzule. Xo wonder ihat the people shudder ai the mangold-wuizul- "Save us from thr mangold-wurziil!" they cry openly, n.n<] recall the horrors of the mangold wurzu winter of 1910-17. At night the cafes are full, and for s shilling one may eat a biscuit made ol husks, and for one and sixpence drink * cup of maujrold-wurzul coffee or eo-callec beor—and listen to excellent music. Ir the dancing halls couples move in tin tango and foxtrot lo American rags and drink Orman champagne in tiie in tervals. A girl sintffl a song describing tin meagre furniture -of the German larder The refrain runs, '"ohne Eier, oline But tor. ohne Felt (without i'ggs, withou butter, without fa: I. A man parodie: her sung by describing the difficulties o social Ljle: '■Dime Veste, ohne Hose ohne Rock" (without waistcoat, withou trousers, without coat). I'rivalc soldiers an.l sailors dance am flirt: member* of the Workman's a-n< Soldiers" Council refresh themselvei ifter their day's weighty toil witr champagne and cigars, and grow ek> quent upon t!u> dangers of Pa.n-S!avUn and the intoxicating sweetness of inter national brotherhood. The chani p:igne i~ £2 a bottle, but the members fi: their own salaries. DAXCIX<; AND PLIRTINO. The greater part of Hamburg dances though there are those who lament tlia there are persons wllo can dance wiiil two million Germans lie dead ami th Fatherland disgraood; and who can repl to Foch with the fox-trot and the Pol with Uic "hesitation." •Nevertheless, the first act of the Worl men's and Soldiers' Council was the n moral of the four y«irs' ban upon publ dancin- No doubt Ihe Council decidei to show how benign and sensible < human frailty it was, and thought wel to celebrate the lofty transition to th new and holy Oerruan. democracy wit dance and timbrel.