GRIM PETROGRAD.

Gisborne Times, Volume LI, Issue 5345, 4 December 1919, Page 5

GRIM PETROGRAD.

THOUSANDS DIE DAILY. LONDON, November 15. The Times correspondent, in Helsingfors states that a death-rate stillness broods over Petrograd, according to a competent observer, who escaped a 'few days ago. The few inhabitants, hurrying like phantoms through the streets, are mostly puffy-faced. women and children, and these, with an occasional old man leaning against the wall are pictures of the deepest despair. The arrival of frost dealt the last blow to the vanishing hopes of relief. The Bashkire mercenaries imported a virulent variety of typhus, from which thousands of starved and. weakened people are dying dlaily, overflowing the hospitals. The latest prices of food includes: Bread 350 roubles a pound; butter, 1800 roubles : horseflesh 500 roubles; other flesh (belie7ed to he human), 100 roubles; and herrings, 80 roubles. Coffee, sugar and clothes are unobtainable. There is further confirmation that the Red commissaries live lu.c uriously. Their women, covered with furs and diamonds, attend musical and other entertainments, amidst the city’s tragedy. The pre-war value of a rouble was 2s lid-