LIFE-IN JASSY.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 11948, 6 March 1917, Page 5

LIFE-IN JASSY.

RUM'S WORMY CAPITAL

{HAMILTON FYFB in " Daily Mail.")

Imagine fcho Feat of Government of the British Isles suddenly plumped down in a city no larger than Southport or Bath f Think of a population of 75,000 increased by an inflow of ,30.C00 new inhabitants!

How are those to be housed? How can they be fed? 'Where are the Government offices to establish themselves? How shall tho Foreign Legations find suitable quarters? By •what means can the resources of the town be so developed as to suffice for a population nearly double that of ordinary times?

It will be long before these questions are ail satisfactorily answered. In "the meantime those who showenergy and enterprise are managing to settle down and get on with Uidr work. The others (who are tho majority) ' are waiting for something to turn' up, and they are likely Jo wait for some time. Tho difficulties of changing chaos into order are all the greater by reason of the very large number of troops who are passing through Jossy (pronounced lashy). As [ am writing there pass by my window a mile at least of transport waggons belonging to a brigade that has come in by road. The streets are filled with Russian soldiers in their winter caps 'of sheepskin. In the cafes all day long two-thirds of the marbletopped tables are occupied by Russian officers drinking tea. With the brown Russian uniforms mingle the blue of the Rumanian Army, the smart cloaks and kepis of innumerable French officers, the slategrey tunics of the Serbs, and the khaki of the British Red Cross Ambulance men. This is the ambulance given by the Miners' Federation to Rumania. Iv was to have gone on to Bucharest. The news of the evacuation of the capital kept it here. Where it is to establish itself has not _yet been decided. Among all these on the square in the centre of the town and up and down the narrow thoroughfares, well paved, however, and lined with surprisingly well-stocked shops, move tho peasants with their oxcarts; the notables of Jassy, who represent the highest culture of the country ; and tho Jews, who form so large an element here, keeping in their hands almost all the business, wholesale ;is well as retail, of the neighbourhood.

The well-to-do Jews have comfortable, even luxurious, houses; educate their daughters in convents kept by French nuns; send their sons to the university; dress like other well-to-do people, and resent bitterly the law which treats them as strangers in the land. The Rumanians insist that they are strangers who flocked in without being invited, and who would, if they were admitted to citizenship, set up a. political as well as a commercial domination. The question has many sides to it, and is far too big for me to discuss, in passing, now. CITY OF PALACESPleasanter to speak of the magnificent situation of Jassy, perched on a hill among the mountains of Moldavia, with glorious views on every side, and an atmosphere which, after the flavourless air of Bucharest, is deliciously fresh and invigorating. It has the aspect from the valley of a city of palaces. An immense administrative building looks like a royal residence. The domed and pointed towers of famous churches support the illusion. When you climb the hill and make the town's acquaintance you find it less thrilling than it appeared from, a vdistance, but, nevertheless, an agreeable and from certain points of view an interesting place. Of the two provinces which were united to make Rumania a kingdom, Wallachia is by far the richer but Moldavia, has always claimed, and justly claimed, to be the intellectual partner. In this small centre there are as many good bookshops as would, be found in half a "dozen small English towns of the same size. The Moldavians are proud of their birth. They are proud, of having furrmhed most of Rumania's prominent statesmen.

. In Moldavia, the peasants preserve their own particular character and costume. They mingle a good deal of Slav melancholy and fatalism with their more robust and cheerful Latin origins. Their songs are plaintive; their philosophy teaches the acceptance of whatever' God sends, the folly of trying to interfere with the decrees of Nature. If their harvest is good, they live better than usual, but make ho attempt to put „y for a rainy day. They will even say that it is sinful to save. " What God gives He gives to be consumed, not to bo treasured up." It can easily be imagined that the Moldavian peasant has a hard life as a rule. In their broad-brimmed wide-awake hats, long blouses reaching to the knees and drawn in at the, waist with a belt of red, tight cotton trousers, leather jackets embellished with embroidery and fur, the men look prosperous and care-free on Sundavs, while the women's dresses are da'inty and gay, But in the fields they are like scarecrows, and one notices th f the prettiness of the girls soon becomes hardened and coarsened by open-air work. HIGH HOTEL PRICES. There is talk of measures being taken to cheek the rapacity of hotelkeepers and those who aro letting rooms at rates which would pay for expensive apartment's in London or Paris. Twenty, thirty, forty pounds a month arc asked and gladly given for single rooms, and small rooms at that. In the shops the prices are to match. No matches can be bought, no sugar, no wood. Tea and coffee have risen to five times their usual value. In the restaurants the dishes cost the same as before. This was arranged by the authorities. But the size of the dishes has decreased to such an. extent that one needs three or four portions to make up what formerly was the amount of nourishment contained m one. The crti*kers who always make their unwelcome voices heard in moments of difficulty_ prophesy that soon there will be a famine.