The Washington times., 1918-04-10

most every one complains in winter OF
not being anything like warm enough.
How pitied the children who had no
stockings inside their wooden shoes.
Quite frequently those were the
children of upper class Germans.
Wooden shoes abound in Germany
Apd the streets are all uproariously
a:clatter with the wooden sandals of
German children, while people who
had never tried on a wooden shoe
before the war, let alone wearing
one, are thoroughly accustomed to
the experience now. 1t apparently
involves much less OF a hardship than
might be supposed. The wooden shoe
OF wartime is not the boatlIke -sa-
bot one has seen in pictures, but SIM
ply a leather or mock leather shoe
with wooden sole or a wooden
sandal without uppers.' Sometimes
the maker gives the sole a degree OF
pliability by inserting a hinge.
: High Prices For shoes.
ITO obtain all leather shoes. IL any
exist-or even all imitation leather
shoes-you must be prepared to pay a
fairly high price and lead up to the
transaction by showing a wornout
pair. This helps to explain why men
are constantly coming TO your door
and offering good money for castoff
Shoes; they can sell them to people
who will use them as exhibit A OF
dire and desperate need and thus Sc
cure "schein" to buy new ones.
ON purchasing the new pair one
koes direct to the cobbler to have
him nail scraps OF real leather Cleay-
ings from the factories that make
boots for the army all over the soles.
Otherwise, sure as fate, the thing
will happen that happened to me, and
Il will happen speedily. 1 neglected
this precaution, and in less than no
time found a hole as big as d silver
dollar.
: As rubber has vanished, no one in
Germany can buy rubber overshoes
Rubber elastic gartefs are replaced
By spirals OF wire, rubber raincoats
by Imitation rubber raincoats-
hrownish, ugly, and semi-transpar-
ent.
Silk you can buy without a
tschein," but the selection Is small
and the quality wretched. / was told
that furs dropped 80 per cent in price
when Russia declared an armistice
and resumed trading with Germany
But Germans have little need OF fin
cry in wartime. All the dress func-
tions indoors and out, ceased when
the imperial German government be-
gan its campaign to conquer the
world
Women sun FoIow style.
However, the W.T. has not wholly
abolished the feminine love OF fash
IONS, and while In answer to my de-
niand for French fashion books a
shopkeeper said: Our German fash
ions are good enough for anybody"
such periodicals as lie Bon Ton and
lie Chic still come into Germany
through Switzerland and are pounced
ppon with all the old delighted
fagerness.
women now wear trousers while do
ing mems work-the girl messengers.
for example. and the motorwomen
and female coal heavers-and except
that wooden shoes are extensively
worn. no downright startling changes
in costume have taken place. But,
oh, the shabbiness. the seediness.
with everywhere signs of poverty and
suffering.
German Spirit Broken.
Poor wretches, They look down
and out" and by their clothes con
tinually remind themselves and one
another OF war and its calamIties. /
Next to the food shortage, the clothes
shortage, with its attendant exas-
perations and discomforts, is perhaps
the most potent OF the influences
that are undermining morale among
the German people. For there Is a
sense in which CLOTHES make the
man." II wretched and hideOus and
dear, they break his spirit. I
And the spirit behind the lines in Ger
many is not only breaking, 1t has
broken. Among the masses, II may
now be designated without much eN-
as the spirit that wei I
comes peace at any price"
Copyright. 1918. by the Tribune
Company
miss SIocum's next article, "BusI- ,
ness In Warning Germany will ap-