The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1915-11-30
WARS DREADFUL
 TOLL REALIZED IN
 AUSTRIAN CAPITAL
Prices of Food, Clothing and Coal Have Doubled in
 Vienna.

Zurich, Switzerland. Nov. 30.-Af- ter fourteen months Vienna is begin ming to realize the effects of the war, which hitherto had left little out ward mark on the life of the Austrian capital. But in the past few weeks prices of food have advanced by leaps and bounds. Coal is becoming scarcer and dearer, just as winter is approaching. Clothing has doubled in price. / And altogether the imme- diate outlook for the great masses of the population is extremely dismal Much of the trouble is due to the army having taken nine-tenths of the strong, ab1e-bodied 1aboring men from the city. Hardly any teamsters are left, and great quantities of four, and provisions, and coal are lying in the railway warehouses and yards, causing al serious congesti on. The sit uation is so serious that the city council is taking steps to use the mu- nicipal street railways for fbringing goods to the storekeepers in the city. Switch tracks are being laid to the mills and railway yards. at a cost of sixty thousand dollars.
 Another cause of the present high prices of food is the manip ulation of speeulators, who are hiding large stores of provisions, and so creating an artificial shortage in the markets Immediately best fresh butter went up to $1.25 a poundLat which price no- body could buy more than a quarter of a pound at 8 tirne-large stocks suddenly came on the market and prices fell at once to a dollar
 Convinced that huge stocks of, foodstuffs were somewhere in exist ence in the store warehouses result ing in some surprising discoveries. Among the provisions concealed in of packages Of rice, flour, sugar, cheese, canned foods, chocolate. cur rants, stea and coffee and condensed milk. Steps are being taken, to find put the owners who will be rigorous ly prosecuted for conspiring to raise the price of food.
 Althoug the new four is now in the market the. supply in the retail bakeries is very limited. In the poor CT suburbs people gather around the stores as early as three o'clock in the morning, and by six o'clock the crowd will number anywhere from five hun dred to a thousand persons, mostly women and children. The bakeries open at seven and the sign of ftsoId out" is generally put up before eight o'clock. Later corners can get noth- ing. Many poor persons earn a cou- pie of cents buying flour fork their neighbors who do not care to stand for hours in the street these cold au- .tunn mornings:
 Since the military authorities requi- Sttioned all the stocks sOf ruDDer ureS in the country, and even took away those actually in use on the cars of private owners, automobiles have all. most disappeared from the streets of Vienna. There are no more motor cabs; the few cars still Seen are either occupied by army officers or have SC me connection with the war
 And there seems to. be no end to the demands and appeals for money for various .che ritable and military ob- jects. The Vieuna Neue Freie Presse. has started since the war begun, col. Iections for more than hundred dif-i ferent funds and have succeeded in raising over million dollars The largest individual benefaction is the Red Cross for which the Presse has collected s216.oo0. Next comes the fund for the blind soldiers, which re ceives $40, 900. The other objects for which the paper has made collec-' tions include one for furnishing arr ticial limbs for the wounded soldiers;z for the families of reservists called to the front, and for the Austrian sub marines Altogether there are no less than 1856 different funds for some of (which less than ten dollars have HeeTl subscribed.