The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1918-01-12
Pennsylvania Woman Tells
of Four Years Spent in
Sax0ny
NATIONAL COLLAPSE
SEEMS INEVITABLE
Believes That Hunger and Typhoid Will
Compel Surrender Even II Army
Wishes to Continue War-Death Rate
Unprecedented.

PHILADELPHIA, Jan. 12.-Relating
her experiences during four years III
Germany Miss Laura Herring OF
Bloomsbury, Pa, gives an illuminating
view of actual conditions in September
Of this year when she left Germany
Hunger typhoid is the foe which will
finally overthrow Germany, S internal
structure, according to Miss Herring.
\ collapse, she said, is Inevitable, al
though the doggedness Of the people
to suffer may postpone ii for longer
time than she believes to be possible.
She quotes a German baron as saying
that hunger typhoid will kill and com
rel surrender, even if the armies are
still anxious to fight.
~ easily understand how the people
are brought to this will to suffer,
| said Miss Herring. ct is because they
| are given to understand that England $
| food situation is every whit as bad as
+! theirs In fact, 1 believed II myself
until | came out of Germany.
II know what the horrors of hun
ger typhoid are in some measure. |
tried to get out of Germany and
| couldn t. | suffered only as a person
in Saxonv must suffer, and was in a
state that bordered on complete ex-
haustion. Those months found me weak
from malnutrition and undcrnourish-
ment, 50 badly affected that for five
months | could not sing a note.
u ~
beyond hunger now they are border
ing on nervous exhaustion. In Dresden
last winter the conditions were perfect
l. terrible. From December till Aprl
potatoes formed our only diet and they
were always frozen or rotten.
1.-The situation became SO bad tha'
we could buy nothing except by thu
cards And in that connection | wan
to tell You a funny story. There is I
delicatesa3n store in Dresden, the pro
prietors which are Lehman & LEIGH
senring. The wife of one of the part
: ners il an American. and it wa
through her that occasionally we go
something decent. Columbia Rive
! salmon in cans cost $50 a can, Will
rmoked eel brought $3 a pound, A
. the 1916 Christmas goose sold for !
: a pound, but the fowls were terribl
a.rawnv. while plump geese cost So
a pound If YOU could Get ham it COS
50 and - a pound; butter was 50
pound. but most Of the time it was nc
in existence.
, Our ration of bread weekly wa
three pounds, and at the end they wei
> putting kohlrabi into it. Finally tn
kohlrabi became the principal articl
of food and we ate it five times wee
I'VE ate only one meal a day, to
And now you shall learn what | ha
: to eat for three weeks myself and Nj
! dred, my sister. At our principal me-
u we had Brussels sprouts every 9th,
n day and no potatoes. On the 9th,
days We had a,hwarzwurzel, which Ii
Z orally translated means blaekroots.
h f-company was billeted in Dresden al
we became acquainted with the me
l sergeant, who presented us with tv
n cans of blood pudding. This was f
the soldiers. In addition we got tn
summer some noodles. 50 for thr
weeks we had the Brussels sprouts OF
- day and the blood pudding and noodl
II the next, alternating that way.
H "1nese sprouts cost Is cents a poui
H and one needed fully three pounds
II make one meal for two. One pound
II noodles was also needed for both of |
H Now, that was the only meal.
II the morning we had two slices of bla
H bread and horrible mess called ms
y malade This was made by draggi
= a raspberry through that awful kol
rabi, just to color the nasty moss. II
YOU spread over your bread. VIII
ct bread is unknown Coffee for t,
Id years has been made of roots, real e
fee brings 81 pound, while cocoa co.
% dollar or two more
" You can easily imagine how Il
diet has affected the people. There
nobody in Germany among the midC