"LIFE" IN BERLIN

Evening Star, Issue 16550, 9 October 1917, Page 5

"LIFE" IN BERLIN

HAMS, £2O EACH; CAULIFLOWERS, 4s. An Englishwoman, the wife of a Swiss bank _ official, who has just succeeded in reaching _ Switzerland after several years' sojourn in Berlin, sends a vivid picture of the condition of tho German peoplo (says tho London 'Evening News' of August 12). Writing to a friend at Tewkesbury she says : We had a most beautiful flat, with wonderful silver and linen, but nothing to eat. Mangel wurzels and a few potatoes formed many a dinner. You can go from one end of Berlin to another and find nothing, except with your cards, and when those are exhausted you have nothing mora until the next week. A ham (when you find it) costs £2O; jrpint of bad oil £l. Thero aro no soap, cheese, cake, biscuits, fat, coffee, tea, rice, cereals, soda, cocoa, milk, chocolate, sweets' jam, bacon, sausage, or beer. Of ton there are no potatoes. Our only weekly food allowance was as follows s 2£lb of dreadful black bread (mado of wood shavings, inferior flour, potato skins, oto), Jib Hour, l£oz butter, 7oz bad meat, soz sugar; one egg per month. A cauliflower costs 4a, and a cabbage 2s. Nobody over five years has milk.

Everybody is broken down for want of proper food. We have paid 10s for a pound of biscuits. One cannot buy a pair of stockings without a police permit. The people are dead sick of everything. That the seeds of revolution aro fast being sown in Germany no one can d»nv but this oppressed, voteless people, crushed by the villainous police system, dare not speak. They know nothing of tho real state of affairs. Wo.did a little propaganda by lending them, neutral papers, but, of course, wo had to be very careful I always found tho Gorman peoplo very kind and open-hearted, but the moment one touched officialdom thoy were worse than savages. Things looked very bad just before my husband loft (he remained behind for some tune). There were even soldiers m the Ditwaner Bank, and everybody had to give a password before thev could enter. Tho authorities were afraid of tho mob. Such is life in BorlinJ