The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1918-07-12
By W. G. BRITroN-BELvOIR.

a ent witnesses is too unanimous and | too detailed to be ignored.
 h a sense, it is the most -stupen- !dous and terrible tragedy recorded in History. When, in 1870, two millions of Parisians were reduced during the siege to the verge of famine, the .wl.ole worlI thrilled with horror at the spectacle But here we have .7O,OO0,0OO Germans in an even worse plight, not to mention some 5G,000,- 900 Austrians. .! It is difficult for the average Briton to imagine what this means Here we have undergone privation, but we have not, as g. nation, suffered prlva- ton; while famine is far~off spec tre, hardly considered because never likely to materialize.
 No Dogs Left.
 But in Germany there is famine, in every single essential of life, barring only air and water. Just one instance. The other day the censor issued an order to the Berlin news papers prohibiting the publication of advertisements of dog flesh. Imme- diately ripple of grim, ironic laugh- ter ran from one end of the capital to the other. The people there knew that there are now practically no dogs left in Berlin-or, for that matter, anywhere else in Germany-for. two different reasons. There is no food to give the dogs, and the people have eaten the dogs for food.
 l Nine months ago, when the problem was not nearly so acute as it now is, Mr. Gerard made the astounding statement that the Germans would not, in the event of necessity, hesitate purposely to starve all persons over a certain age. People here in America shrugged their shoulders incredu- lously They simply could not believe in the possibility of such a horror be- ing perpetrated.
 Refuse Food to Sick.
 Today the thing is being done. The Rev. Father Aloyius Daniels, a we'll known Roman Catholic priest, who left Germany so recently as last Feb ruary, says:
 Germany now only cares for those who can aid her in prosecuting the war. Those who go to the police sta tions, where all permits for food are issued, and ask permission to buy milk or eggs for sick persons who are unable to eat the ordinary rations of war bread and potatoes, are imre- diately asked how old is the sick per son. If the ailing individual is be- yond the age of active service, food is refused. The man is of no use to - Germany; we have nothing for him, s- f,,Trr -i,,I,J
 Even salt is now rationed, for, on top of all her other food troubles, Germany has suffered from a salt famine since the beginning of the present year. Try to imagine, you who read these lines, what this means to a people whose basic foodstuffs just now are swedes and potatoes, eked out by an over-dwindling mini mum of innutritious and exceedingly unpalatable war bread.
 Everybody knows the story of the little boy who defined salt as "the stuff that spells potatoes when you don't boil them with it." Try to real ize the meaning of a dinner of pota- toes cooked in saltless water and served, of course, minus that or any other condiment! Yet this is the meal that is being eaten in millions of German and Austrian homes today.
 In the years before the war the Germans were gross feeders. Pork was their favorite meat diet. Tn 1914 the pig population of Germany amounted to slightly over 25,O0O 900. A recent government census showed that there are now left only 5,OOO,- 900 pigs in all Germany and these are being reserved for the army. Such figures speak for themselves.
 Money is still plentiful-that is to say paper money, for all gold, and, quite recently, all silver as well has been withdrawn from circulation. Its place has been taken by notes of small denominations, ranging from '2Ad in our money upwards.
 Hunger Typhus.
 This is all very well, but one can not eat money; and even rich people find themselves unable to purchase with it the wherewithaI to satisfy their hunger. E. L. Pyke, an English man recently released from Ruhleben has placed it on record how he once paid pounds for a lunch for two in one of Berlin's most fashionable res taurants-and they came away hun gry. About the same time he paid 1 2 shillings for one uncooked cabbage and four shillings and siXpence for a pound of sprouts, obtained as a great favor.
 One result of the long-continued privation has been the advent of the terrible hunger typhus," which frs made it's appearance in epidemic form early last year, and by the sum. mer had spread practically to every part of Germany, where 1t is nov more or less endemic. Frightful rav. ages, too, are being made in man, districts by dysentery, as the resul of improper and insufficient food.
 These facts are fully borne out b, letters found on the prisoners taker by us and by our allies, the French C. several thousand letters examined sInce August last, more than one-hal contain references to the spread o these twin scourges, among the place mentioned as infected being suci important centres of population a Cologne, Mulheim, Coburg, Wies baden, Halle. Altona, Mayence, Ham burg. Munich, Stettin, Mannheim ant Bingen.
 Some of the letters make very path etic reading. In many hundreds o the letters there appear such phrase as: we are all of us little nor than skin and bone" There is n fat to he given to the children; the are like little skeletons"
 Face to face with starvation, tn mass of the German people are sim ply ignoring, whenever it is possibl In .f,,l