The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1918-07-12
GERMANY IS NOW NEAR a THE ACTUAL REALIZATION STORIES
 COMING THROUGH THE LINES INDICATE

lin courts recently was proved to have done roaring trade in smoked hams at 24 pounds apiece. Another culprit had been disposing of secretly-fat- tened geese at an average price of g pounds each.
 Nor it is only in homegrown food stuffs that this kind of secret sub terranean traffic is carried on. Im- ported articles, such as coffee, tea, and cocoa, are today practically un- procurable in Germany in the ordin- ary way. Small quantities are, how ever smuggled occasionally across the Swiss and Dutch frontiers, but these never reach the open market They are disposed of secretly for practi- cally any price the 'holder chooses to demand to wealthy people who hap pen to be "in the know"
 Ordinary individuals have to be content with substitutes" of which there are many to be had-most of | them, be it said, competing with one another as regards nastiness. The | favorite coffee substitute, for instance, is made from burnt acorns, and the | resultant dark-colored and evil-smell- | ing beverage Is about as nauseous as anything one can conceive. Tea sub | stitute is made principally from dried | mulberry-leaves, and is almost equal | ly uninviting. Altogether there are | scores of substitutes for food in use, | most of which, plaintively remarks | the Hamburger ,Fremdenblatt," have no food value" Apple-Parings for Tea. | The most serious famine of al, how ever, from the point of view of the health expert, is that in fat and oils. | It is the almost entire lack of these indispensable articles of diet that is slowly yet surely snappihg the vital | ity of the German people. A some what curious sidelight is thrown on this phase of the food shortage by an announcement in a recent number of the Berlin "Vossische Zeitung" to the effect that a new source of edible oil production is now being drawn up-l | tomato-seeds These seeds" the pa per goes on to say, "are being col lected everywhere in Germany, and in the occupied territories, particularly | Rumnaia."
 ,, Another recent announcement, in the "Berliner Lokalanzegier'' this time, runs as follows: "Oil collectors for the government are paying cash or soup-cubes for fruit-kernels and melon seeds, from which to extract oil for margarine The same paper gravely advises it's readers to use dried appleparings as a substitute for tea. Obviously, a nation which is reduced l ho hard hit indeed.
 Here in England we have at our dis posal the harvest of the sea- If the | worst comes to the worst this alone would probably suffice to save us from actual starvation. But Germany has no sea fish to speak of, with the ex- ception of a very small supply of the coarser kinds from the Baltic, while
 practically all the fresh water fishes
 in the country have already been lcaught and consumed.
 How severe is the fish famine may
 be gauged from the fact that DOT
 poise-meat, usually regarded as being
 uite unfit for human consumption,
 has now been added to the official list
 of "edible" fish-foods issued monthly
 by the Berlin Municipality. The price
 for bloaters, and other similarly cured
 fishes has increased since the war by
 no less than seventeen hundred per
 cent, but practically none are obtain
 able in the ordinary way, even at these
 eXorbitant rates
 $235 For Ham.
 The famine effects all Germany. but
 some places are suffering worse than
 others. In Hamburg, for instance,
 which before the war was reckoned as
 being one of the most prosperous cit
 ies in the Empire, the lack of food
 has become so accentuated that forty
 thousand children have had to be torn
 from their homes and sent into the re-
 mote country districts in East Prus-
 sia, where food of kind is supposed to be slightly more plentiful, in order
 to preserve their lives Recently a
 wealthy Hamburg merchant was sent
 to jail for the "crime" of secretly pur-
 chasing ham. It weighed fifteen
 pounds, and the price paid for it ac-
 cording to the evidence was 47 pounds.
 Nor is it only in regard to food stuffs that famine prevails. Leather | r. Pyke I have quoted. paid 4 pounds for very ordinary pair of boots As a result of this one shortage, tens of thousands of Germans have been com pelled to go barefoot all through this , past bitter winter, for even wooden
 clogs were not obtainable in many parts of the country, owing to the | scarcity of the labor required to make
 them. Naturally, this has led to a l big increase in the death-rate from } pulmonary diseases, and especially tu- t berculosis, which has developed to an 2 alarming extent among the children . of the very poor.
 7 Clothing of all kinds, too, is almost ' equally scarce. All purchases of new woolen materials are strictly rationed. V and maximum wardrobes are fixed by t law. Millions of Germans are to-day
 wearing clothes made from various y substitutes, such as "paper-yarn" and I thistle-cloth. A starched collar, is a . thing unheard of, for starch is un- l Erocurable Nor can wearing appa- f rel be properly cleansed even, for soa D f is not to be had for love or money. s In short, it comes down to this that H the bulk of the people of the Central g Empires are without proper food or . proper clothing, cannot obtain a = mouthful of either tea, coffee or CO., 1 coa, are almost destitute of drugs or
 medicines, as well as of most other = substances essential to a healthy ex- f istence, and that the combined pres s sure of all these accumulated prfva- e tions must inevitably compel them to o make peace on our terms probablv