New Britain herald., 1915-12-29
VIENNA REALIZING
 EFFECTS OF WAR
Prices Of Food Advance By Leaps
 and Bounds

| Correspondence of The Associated PressD
 Zurich, Switzerland, Dec. 23.-After fourteen months Vienna is beginning to realize the effects of the war, which hltherto had left little outward mark on the life of the Austrian capital but In the past few weeks prices of | rood have advanced by leaps and pounds. Coal is becoming scarcer and dearer, just as winter is approaching. Clothing has doubled in price. And altogether the immediate outlook for me great masses of the population is extremely dismal.
 Much of thetrouble is due to the army having taken nine-tenths of the strong, able-bodied laboring men from the city. Hardly any teamsters are left, and great quantities of flour, and provisions, and coal are lying in the railway warehouses and yards, caus- ing a serious congestion. The situa- ton is so serious that the city coun- cll is taking steps to use the municipal street railways for bringing 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.
 Spcculators Hiding Provisions. Another cause of the present high prices of food is the manipulation of speculatOrs, who are hiding large stores of provisions, and so creating | an artificial shortage in the markets. Immediately best fresh butter went l up to $1.25 pOund-at which price nobody could buy more than a quar- ter of a pound at a time-large stocks ] suddenly came on the market and prices fell at once to dollar.
 Convinced that huge stocks of food stuffs were somewhere in existence in the city, the Vienna police have just made thorough search of all the storage warehouses resulting in some 1 surprising discoveries. Among the i provisions concealed in these places, i were found hundreds of packages of rice, four sugar, cheese, canned foods, chocolate, entrants, tea and coffee and condensed milk. Steps are being taken to find out the owners who will be vigorously prosecuted for conspiring to raise the price of food.
 Supply Very Limited.
 Although the new flour is now in the market the supply in the retail bakeries is very limited. Tn the poorer suburbs people gather around the stores as early as 3 o'clock in the morning, and by o'clock the crowd will number anywhere from five hun dred to a thousand persons, mostly women and children. The bakeries open at and the sign of "sold out'' , j3 generally put up before o'clock. Later corners can get nothing. Many poor persons earn a couple of cents by buying flour for their neighbors who do not care to stand for hours in
 
 ings.
 Since the military authorities re- Guisitioned all the stocks of rubber tires in the country, and even took away those actually in use on the cars of private owners, automobiles have almost disappeared from the streets if Vienna. There are no more motor cabs; the few cars still seen are either occupied by army officers ur have some connection with the war.
 No End to Demands.
 And there seems to be no end to the demands and appeals for money fer various charitable and military objects The Vienna Neue Freie Presse has started since the war be- gan, collections for more than a hun dred different funds and have suc- Ceeded in raising over million dol lcrs. The largest individual benefac- tion is the Red Cross for which the Presse has collected $216,000. Next comes the fund for the blind soldiers, which receives $14O,000. The other objects for which the paper has made collections include one for furnishing artificial limbs for the wounded sol Giers; for the families of reservises called to the front and for the Aus trian submarines. Altogether there are no less than 156 different funds for some of which 1ess than ten dol-