SOUP KITCHENS FEED VIENNESE.

Wanganui Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 15754, 28 February 1919, Page 4

SOUP KITCHENS FEED VIENNESE.

ROTTEN CABBAGE, SAWDUST FLOUR, AND HORSE MEAT DOLED OUT. H. J. Grcenwal, special correspondent of the Daily Express, sends from Vienna a tragic account of conditions in that starving capital. “I have received every opportunity of going behind the scenes and making an impartial report,” he writes. "My first visit of the morning was to one of ten soup kitchens, each feeding 6000 persons daily. I saw a line of men women ,and hundreds of tiny children. Those first in the line waited two and a half hours before they were admitted. “Each person receives half a litre of soup daily. This soup is made from rotten cabbage and flour, and is boiled in washing tubs. I have a sample of the flour here beside me. At first glance it looks like sand, but a closer inspection reveals the quantity of sawdust which it contains. On Sundays a small portion of horseflesh is dropped into the eoup. “AH these human wrecks, with their bones protruding through their skins exist on this soup. Hundreds die daily and are buried in paper coffins because the wood must bo used for fuel. Vienna is in a sullen mood. The whole of German Austria is afraid of Bolshevism. I understand there is barely sufficient food here for three weeks and only enough coal for a fortnight. Unless help arrives swiftly, hell wilb. break loose. Soon the lights will go out, and already the people arc buying rifles and machine-guns. “Officials state that the Hungarians have fiod, but that they will not give any of it to Austria, while the Czechs hove ood but wfll not share it. People

here understand that the Entente cannot assist immediately, but they want the Allies to bring pressure to bear upon thes two countries, and so save the situation and avoid Bolshevism. “At this moment the people are without leaders, but a general famine may; lead to all sorts of excesses. "WHO GUARDS THAT STREAM DIVINE?” LONDON, December 10. According to a returned British prL soner who was at liberty in Berlin during the revolution there, “Deutschland über Alles,” “The Watch on the Rhino,’ 1 and similar patriotic songs are just now' highly unpopular in the German capital. Three English civilians who had oelobrated the signing of the armistice wero coming along the Unter den Linden singing “The Watch on the Rhine,'s' when they were stopped by German soldiers, who said they ought to be rubbish. “I’ve come from the Rhine,” one of the German soldiers remarked. “You go down there and try to keep watch, and then you won’t sing so much about it.” “But we are English,*' one of the civilians replied. “What?” exclaimed the astonished soldier. “Then why sing “Tiro Watch on the Rhine?’ ” “Well,” grinned the Englishman* ‘Ton see, we are keeping it now.”