Americus times-recorder. [volume] (Americus, Ga.) 1891-current, 1916-09-25
Little City Comes to The
Front as Clearing House
For The Prisoners of War

4 VI L UG 4
MAUTHAUSEN, Austria, Sept. 25.-
From a picturesque though little
known village on the upper Danube,
Mauthausen has become the clearing
house" in Austria for Italian prisoners
of war.
Its peace-time population of few
hundred persons has grown to the
size of a small city, and each month
there pass through it, with a three
weeks slip for quarantine purposes,
several thousand Italian soldiers and
several hundred Italian officers.
The town consists of group of pic
turesque houses, church or two and
an ancient palace that clings to the
edge of the Danube. What may be
called the new city consists of acres
upon acres of white washed barracks,
holding in all when full $4,000 sold
iers.
There were only some eight or ten
thousand Italian soldiers interned in
the city" when the Associated Press
correspondent arrived to pay the camp
a visit. Two days earlier there had
been $4,000, but the greater portion of
them had been sent out along their
way-to permanent camps in eastern
Austria and Hungary.
Big Package Arrivals.
Daily there arrive at Mauthausen
some 5000 bulky parcels or love gifts"
from relatives and friends in Italy. The
banking and bookkeeping department
of the camp has to maintain a ledger
with something over 41,O0O running
bank accounts, the total of which far
exceeds million crowns. Each pris-
oner, wherever he may be, is permit
ted to possess ten crowns a week for
canteen spending money. All that he
receives from home over that goes into
his account. The actual handling or
cash devolves upon Austrian officers;
the bookkeeping is done by Italian
prisoners of war, who are thus in a
position to know that the funds of
their compatriots are honestly and
accurately administered
So long as he stays in Mauthausen,
which may be for year if his conduct
is good, the Italian soldier is offered
the privileges of school in which IL
li;erates are taught to read and write,
and in which the better educated may
take courses in German, in English and
in other useful subjects. If so in
clined he may take up painting and
mood "a r1rip,r apd co,,1v+,,ro II viii
be furnished the materials, his prod
uct" will be sold at price not under
minimum set by himself, and he will
he given the balance between sales
Price and cost of materials. Or he can
enter either the stringed orchestra, or
the brass band.
The correspondent saw an exhibition
c. one of the half dozen fire companies,
composed wholly of Italians, who
guarded the camp from possible con-
Migration, and who as a matter of fact
have kept the fire loss, despite the
wooden construction, down to two
barracks, and no loss of life. Fire pre-
ention is further aided by high fire
tower in the center of the camp, on
which two men constantly stand guard
with a horn to warn of blaze and a
flag to indicate its direction.
Writer Sees Everything.
The colonel of the camp led the cor
respondent through the wash room
huge barracks fitted with showers and
heated in winter time, or equipped with
RI WIS of faucets for washing hands and
racks. The latter are large and roomy
and very clean-far better than any
tie correspondent had seen in the
course of visits to camps in other
countries