Evening star., 1918-07-28
NAUGHTY RUSSIANS
HUMB[Y BEGBREAD
Impoverished Aristocrats
Gain Existence as
Street Vendors.
RICH LABOR BUYS WARES
of the Associated Press.

Correspondence of the Associated Press.
PETROGRAD. June 15.-Petrograd is
a city Of despair and near-starvation.
For many months threatening phan-
tom-hunger-already has struck down
thousands. A great majority of the two
million persons now crowded into the
once proud capital of Peter the Great
know what it means to be without food
and know that winter is coming. with
probably worse in store.
The people talk, dream and-when
they can-eat food. Long lines form
early in the morning before the shops
to buy food. Thousands storm incom-
ing trains in wild scramble for food
brought in by peasants and travelling
soldiers. In front of every shop window
where foodstuffs are displayed people
stand and gaze longingly with their
eyes glued to the window panes.
Petrograd is also a city with its pock-
cts full of worthless money. Money
presses are working overtime and wages
are increasing. Neither can keep up
with rising prices.
The Nevsky Prospect. "the" Eseet of
Petrograd, is a picturesque votence Of
the city's interest in food. in thse sea-
son Of white nights every hour of the
twenty of daylight sees 1t lined from
one end to the other with street ven
ders. selling cakes and chocolate and
candies and queer little pancakes called
'bleeneys" and sugar in Jumps from
carefully guarded little boxes.
Aristocrats Sell Biscui.x
Persons who formerly owned liyaou-
sines and lived in palace-like homes
along the Neva are selling candies
and biscuits in the streets to earn
their living. Their customers are opu-
lent sailors and workmen who bug
biscuits at fabulous prices because
even they part of the time cannot get
" There i is a daily sight that always
brings hopeful smiles-the motor
lorry loaded with -four on its way to
the soldiers bakery. There is some
smile in Petrograd these days. SIX
cavalrymen ride in front of the lorry
and six sailors heavily armed are
perched high on the sacks.
One need not be surprised II the
lady dressed in silks and satins-once
a member of the bourgeois-who sells
a biscuit on the corner addresses him
in any of the two or three foreign
languages she knows. Then one may
buy newspapers from gray boards IN
frock coats and silk hats and former,
army officers in shiny boots. All are
trying to earn a livelihood in the
commune" of Petrograd, where prop
erty is confscated and incomes have
vanished.
girls. pretty ones. They walk the
long length of the street all the day
and into the night asking for the little
postage stamps that pass for money
in Russia now-because they are
hungry. And then there are other
girls, and the number grows larger
do n M a dn NOT PV2ctly beg
but look wistful and hungry and sell
themselves. instead of biscuits or
chocolate or newspapers. to the roll
licking sailors and debonafr specu-
latorS.
One of the mysteries of Russia is
where the venders of cakes and bis
cults get the things they sell. There
is absolutely no -four to be had and
the bread allowance per person, which
one sometimes gets and-Sometimes
does not. is one-half a pound daily
for the proletariat, and one-eighth of
a pound daily for the bourgeois
The bread is black and heavy and its
ingredients cannot be identified
Sugar cannot be obtained in the shops.
In the homes horse meat. dried cab
bage and what bread is available is
the principal diet for the majority.
Eggs. butter and milk are high in
price ano extremely scarce.
Cost of Living.
Formerly an income of 200 rubles
month was comparative opulence.
Now, according to the best estimates
available. it costs from $500 to 5000
rubles a month to maintain a family
of three in anything like comfort.
Most of the families in Petrograd.
even. with wages soaring, have less
than 1000 rubles a month.
D,,t fHa l.,
pangs because transportation is Grip
Piled and the city is cut off from the
Ukraine. it's principal flour and sugar
producing territory, and from the
nearby Finnish and Baltic communi-
ties that once supplied it with butter.
milk, eggs and vegetables.
In the city's largest hotels some
formerly among the show places of
Europe, there is no electric light. no
elevators, no hot water. and generally
no food One provides always his own
bread, and must keep it under lock
and key, A dinner in one of the bet
ter class restaurants today costs 40
rubles.
But the city struggles on. Now des-
to adapt itself to the topsyturviness
of its present life.
Bread for All Promised.
LONDON, July 26.-Harvesting has
begun and reports from all Russia in
dicate yield generally over the aver
axe, says a Russian wireless dispatch
received here tonight.
There will be bread for all in the
towns and the poor localities" the
dispatch adds.
Kaiser Honors Bov.Ed