The Nome daily nugget., 1917-04-20

ton especially in the towns, large and small, is deplorable. There is great aeal of complaining, and of late the uIspules between the various authori- ,les of the various States, have in creased in intensity. There is also great bitterness as between the coun- l try and the towns, and in any partl- cular town 1 have been tod that some other town IS flowing with milk and money, altho 1 have been about Ger many enough to know better. The 1 complaints against the country people are doubtless justified, by their great
 CT possibilities of hoarding food, the possession of which they do not d1s l close. Yet it would be great mistake ;, to exaggerate the practical effect of 1 that nothing is more striking than the way in which the docilty of all the varians and the rest, positively in
 creases with the decrease of strngth l caused by lack of food.
 l spent Christmas day at's 1 house, where there was d large family gathering. My host who certainly ] owned more than d million of marks before the war, has multiplied his for. tune by five during the war. Twelve 1 of us sat down to dinner. It consisted
 of smoked salmon, smoked eels, q good meat soup, Yenison, two geese, Gruyere cheese, and any amount Of sweets. We drank Burgundy that had been pillaged from Belgium, sparkling Moselle, French Brandy and Swedish Punch We dned at G.30 and We rose at Il. The geese cannot have cost less than 6m 90 pf (s1.50) per pound. Now l know that less than five miles from where we were sitting, people were | scrambling for something called soup, or for penny bowls of potatoes. Next morning as l drove through the snow
 to the Railway Station and saw Zines of people waiting for their daily dole l of potatoes, soup or bread my guilty 1 feelings were not enviable.
 l do not see how Germany is to con- l tinue without securing leather, as you ! well know boots have been now put on the card system. 1 was in Berlin on what was apparently the last day of the sale without cards. People crowd ed the front of the shops, and had to be dispersed by the police when the shops closed. Outside one of the shops in the Leipzigerstrasse there was a | great fight. Everybody wanted to get boots, no matter what kind or size, and
 men even bought womeps boots, the 1 idea being that it would be possible
 to change them later It was however promptly announced that in the future l boots would not be changed without
 a special permit Velvet and silk can
 still be bought without cards. Com- l modities that are thus free are shown
 in the shop windows with the mark
 "Ohne" (withouD which means that
 they can be had without tickets.
 The potato ratiols vary in different ] places and in many the ration Is well under six pounds per head per week, and often mixed with turnip. The
 bread which Improved considerably some time ago is now generally as
 bad as eyer,--the old sodden potato 1 bread-which together with the acorn
 coffee and saccharin, produces inter
 nal irritation and indigestion.S
 When last wrote I was able to get l chocolate quite easily, most of it | Dutch or Swiss, and also cocoa. This
 morning l spent half an hour trying
 to buy chocolate in Cologne. but could
 only find an ornamental composition
 which was called chocolate and was
 2Om ($5.0O) per pound.
 ! My journey occupied much longer
 than l expected, because the whole
 German railway system is disorganiz-
 ed by the shortage of coal This Is
 partly due to labor diniculties,-in
 spite of the release of labor by :he
 military authorities for work in the
 mines-partly in the vast increase ia
 the amount of coal needed by muni- | .@=--:-==--=----- - - .--.----------