STRICKEN PETROGRAD

Wanganui Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 15975, 18 November 1919, Page 11

STRICKEN PETROGRAD

A CITY OF PESTILENCE AND FAMINE. .

BED LEADERS LIVING IN LUXURY. Australian and N.Z. Cable Association. Received November 18, 2.30 p,m, HELSINGFORS, November 15. A deathlike stillness broods over Petrograd. A correspondent says that competent observer who escaped on the 11th November, relates how a few inhabitants are to be seen hurrying phantom-like through the streets, mostly putty-faced women and children, with an occasional old man. These present pictures of the deepest despair. The arrival of the frost dealt the last blow to the vanishing hopes of relief. Mercenaries imported a virulent variety of typhus, and thousands of starved and weakened people are dying daily. The latest prices of food include bread at 350 roubles per pound, butter 1800, horse-flesh 500, other flesh (believed to be human) 100, herrings 80, coffee, sugar and clothes are unobtainable. The Red Commissionaries live luxuriously. Their women, covered with furs, and diamonds, attend the entertainments amidst the city’s tragedy.