Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1917-12-21
MISERY FOUND IN
HOUSEHOLDS IN
KAISER'S LAND
Homes Cold for Lack of Coal
and Dark for Want of Light,
Women Require Official Per-
mitS for Purchases
BY HERBERT COREY.

sidering social conditions in Germany
from across the border in Switzerland,
one is struck by this apparent fact:
The Toad line" of national misery
does not mount tc any peaks. But it
continues along monotonoJs and UNI
deviating level of privations and dis
comfort which must be indefinitely de-
pressing.
No one starves, but no one has enough
to eat. No one freezes. hut re one is
warm.
No one goes naked, but no one is we'll
dressed.
No one is deprived of the actual ne
cessities of life, but no one has the
smaller alterations that lessen the nerv-
Gus tension of life in wartime.
There are no minor amusements. Once
the German hausfrau might visit her
favorite coffee house for coffee and
cakes in the afternoon. There is no cof-
fee now and no cakes, and consequently
no coffee houses. 1t is true that the ma
tionally endowed opera houses are bang
ing away full blare and that military
bands play in the public squares in al
most every German city.
Beer drinking was once a national
sport. That is a statement of bare fact
The German had the best beer in the
world to drink and he drank it with all
the will in the world. 1t was a poor or
a sickening German who did not visit
his favorite beer hall at least once
week with his family, to listen to good
music and sometimes good singing. to
smoke many pipes and drink various
huge pots of brew. His "StammtiSch'
night was far more sacred than Sunday
Then he met his cronies at the table
which had been set apart for them on
that night of the week for a generation
and gossiped and told stories and drank
beer in happiness.
The German is gemutlich,' says one
who knows the German well. "He lives
for his social hour and glass with his
friends"
All that has gone by. The German
beer is a Door thing nowadays. 1t has
been watered and rewatered and watered
again until it is practically undrinlSable.
L have been told by people who left Ber-
lin not long ago that for months they
have not tasted beer.
1t is a thin soap-and-watery, distress
ing beverage that has neither flavor nor
punch. Only the victim OF long habit
continues to drink it, and he is drawn
bv the habit and not by the beer. In
beer has long been forbidden. In others
it is still being brewed, under strict gov
eminent regulation as to content and the
hours in which it may be drunk.
Only in Bavaria is beer comparatively
NOTE the comparatively-free to thirs-
~ souls. The Bavarfan would fight
and GO hungry and half clothed, but
go absolutely thirsty he would not
He has never had a vast liking or re-
spect for the kaiser, anyhow ana ms
adhesion to the German empire is
prompted by his realization of the
tangible advantages of membership and
by the further fact that he cannot get
away Therefore he had no patriotic
sentiment strong enough to induce him
to give up the beer which had been a
good part of his life. He bluntly re-
fused to give up beer. kaiser or no
kaiser So the courts took cognizance
of this menacing attitude and formally
held that:
"In Bavaria beer must be consider
ed as a prime necessity of life"
His point gained, the Bavarian con-
coded something to circumstance. Beer
drinking in Bavaria is limited now. so
that each man has the right to one fun
glass of beer and two half glasses dur
ing the course of each day and to no
more. The beer, be it understood, is
no more like the Bavarian beer of old
than SKINNED milk is like Jersey cream
No beer cards have been issued and the
rugged and determined beer drinker can
still go from beer hall to beer hall,
drinking his one full glass and two half
glasses in each place. But that is not
the custom of the Bavarian. He wants
to puddle himself slowly, hour after
hour in a reverie of beer, contempla-
ton, music, sausage and smoke. He
has the attachment of the house cat
for his beer hall. Having once placed
himself he is good for the evening
Not even the Bavarian can stand his
permitted allowance of modern Bava-
rian beer Fathers stay at home of
nights nowadays who have not seen
their families by candlelight for years.
Nor is the German home pleasant
one nowadays even If that national bur-
den of sorrow and depression did not
weigh upon every rooftree. 1t is cold
and dark. The street lights go out
in all cities at IL o'clock. They are
not needed later, for there is no one
perhaps in the whole empire a police
curfew is to ring this winter at 8
o'clock. SO that lights shall not be
permitted in the homes or on the streets
after that hour. Even earlier in the
evening not one light wrinkles now
where a dozen shone before. The Un-
ter den Linden, Berlin's show street,
is barely picked out of the darkness
by the lamps that shine at distant in
tervals. The lesser streets are in some
instances not lighted at all.
% So that the householder fights his way
home after the days work on tram lines
that are crowded to the last inch of ca
pacity. Once no more than two standees
were permitted in tram in most Ger
man cities, but now the last Corners hang
perilously on the steps The roadbed
has gone to pieces, for repairs are only
made when they are forced. The cars
have not been painted for two years and
if they are not coming to pieces, at
least their joints are loosened. Flat
wheels are as normal as round wheels
used to be. The householder has been
hungry for months and he is as hungry
as ever when he gets up from the meal
of mildly favored vegetables which is
the German dinner of today. One lamp
and mo more is the rule in the average
household. At o'clock in many cities
that lamp must be put out.
During the long summer evenings life
has perhaps been not so positively I'M
pleasant as it will be this winter. There
is to be no central heating hereafter,
because of the lack of coal.
Only one room in each house may be
heated. and that only to a degree which
will neruit the German 70 sit about