Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1915-12-10
RUSSIA ENJOYING A BOOM
Plenty of Food for People to Eat
and No Great Increase in Prices
that Are Being Charged,
PLAN GREAT ARMY NEXT SPRING

Correspondence Of the Associated Press)
LONDON. Dec 6.-"Russia Is now SUIT
fcring only for want OF rifles, and when
II is properly supplied. at least 2,00OoO
additional soldiers will be thrown into
the field with results which only NEXT
springs campaign can tell" such Is the
opinion OF n prominent American mining
engineer, who has just returned to Lon
don. after spending six months In the
Russian empire mainly In siberia, where
he is the chief engineer OF an important
group OF mines. Describing conditions In
Russia, he said:
'''The depression which prevailed out
side Russia during the great German
drive through Poland was never really
duplicated in that country Domestic
troubles existed as always, but the people
! have made their power felt as never be-
fore, and tho only thng that could
cause revolution now would be tho con-
clusion of an unfavorable peace with tho
central powers
The people Of Russia are enjoying
something in the nature of a boom. anu
the cost of living of the Russian peasant,
who does not require luNurics, has not
appreciably increased The Russian peas
| ant is not an imaginative individual, and
the losses suffered in the war has not
greatly impressed him. And besides, the
losses incurred in the great retreat wete
intellectually small, when tho magnitude
OF the fighting is taken into consudera-
/ ton,
Causes Russia Much Concern.
""Even the generally admitted shortage
OF rifles. the wastage of which has been
unprecedented is not causing the Rus.
| slams much concern, as the staff has
realized that the rifle used by infantry
10 not an effective arm. The Russian
army is now we'll supplied with heavy
| guns and munitions and the infantry Ia
being supplied with thousands Of machine
| guns. In attacking, the Russian infantry
man almost invariably detaches the
bayonet from his rifle and uses It as a
| knife when he leaps into the German
trenches. lie has even been known to
discard both rifle and bayonet, relying
on a club TO win a trench.
| For the greater part of the war We
have used Austrian prisoners as miners
in our mines, but lately we have been re-
ceiving Germans from the government
prisoners labor bureau. These Germans
in the main are absolutely unfit for hard
| labor, must OF them being old men with
| gray bears, while others are OF the
student class. many of them wearing
glasses with thick lens. A staff officer
| who is closely connected with the pris-
oners bureau told me that for some time
on the Dvlnsk front the Russians have
been capturing from 100 to 200 women
weekly. These were all In German
uniform. and were apparently serving
as soldiers.
Museum of Horrors.
TN Petrograd ! entered the recently
opened museum of atrocities, but thu
horrors displayed there were too mucf
for me, and feeling deadly i'll / was com
I'm the Scandinavian countries nothing
was talked about except the food short
age in Germany. and some confirmation
of this was given TO me by Dane, who
represents in Berlin one of the bigges
American packing companies. This Dam
declared that the fat allowance had beer
: reduced from eleven to seven ounces {
person daily and he stated that the Ger
man working population would have 1
difficuA time getting through the winter
on this reduced allowance. The Dane
also told me that England was suppllne
its prisoners in Germany with food,
In Copenhagen learned that the
International Harvester company had re-
called all of It's American employees from
Germany, Austrla-Hungary. Turkey and
the Balkans and they are being held In
the Danish capital awaiting orders,
Shipping owners in the Scandinavian
countries are making enormous fortunes
out OF the war and 1t is said that In