The Chickasha daily express. (Chickasha, Indian Territory [Okla.]) 1899-current, 1919-05-17
HUNS LAY TRApSV
FOR YANK MONEY
German Is Making the Best Of the
Business Of 0CCu-
patton.
CODLENzLIKE AMERICAN CITY
Hootblack Stands, "Photos on Buttons
While You Wait" and @German In
20 Lessons" Among Lures
Which Get American Money.

CODlenZ.---Coblenz Is beginning "a
look as American as Milwaukee, and
with each additional day of occupation
the old burg seems to acquire more
American touches-pa particularly since
1000 doughboys are blowing In daily
on leave, to say nothing of the perma.
nent American garrison of approx
mately 10000, and the beaucoup Off
cers in transit to and from France OF
just dropping in from the provinces
the bridgehead and the Hinterland-
for taste of metropolitan high life.
COblenz, with native population OF
$4,000. has a permanent and floating
American population OF at least 10000
and as the American soldier is very
much in evidence, out to see and do
everything he can and some things he
can't, the unreasonable pictorial i'm
preston is unacceptable that we own
the town. Which we do.
The Teuton, with an ineradicable
elementary business shrewdness, is
making the best of the business of
occupation by catering to the big pur-
chasing power of the American sol
dier In every conceivable ingenious
way, and you note evidences on every
hand that the commercially live Ger
man In Coblenz is getting his full
share of the new prosperity springing
from American dollars, or their equiv
alent III francs and paper marks.
fashionable Shines"
A local Teuton genius, for instance,
discovered for the first time that
doughboys would part with money for
having their shoes shlned, and now at
least dozen shoe-shining emporia
have blossomed out in Coblenz and
are prospecting nightly. The curious
fact is that until the coming of the
Amerikaners bootblacks were un-
known in Germany, likewise public
bootblacking stands on street corners
and shoe-shining establishments gen.
orally.
American prosperity, too, came to a
German family which set up a large
umbrella" in the market place of Co
blenz and under this shelter proceed
ed to operate one of those "photos on
buttons" cameras while you wait. A
gOOd-natured crowd of doughboys is al
ways hanging around this open air es-
tablishment in fair weather waiting
their turn to get their photos on but
tons or postcards at five marks per
dozen. German photographers gen
orally are prospering, and making a
determined bid for the doughboy busi-
ness.
AS another commercial novelty in
COblenz you note that several vacant
stores have been turned into shooting
galleries and are drawing a respecta-
BILE doughboy patronage. One such
shooting gallery on the Rhine Strasse
adyertises in the window a prize
Shooting" The prize competition
costs the doughboy 20 cents a shot (;
there are numbered prizes and you get
whatever number corresponds to your
score when you quit. If you score 35
hits you can select any prize in the es-
tablishment. If you are out merely for
target practice, with no ambition to
win a prize, you can blaze away for 10
pfennigs a shot-or, say, q shade more
than one cent.
German Shooting Gallery.
More elaborate is a newly opened
German shooting gallery in the Lehr
Strasse. Here you find automatons
and elaborate picture targets that are
set in motion when you hit the bulls
eye Also, there are nickel-in-the-slot
picture machines and musical traps
for small coins. This establishment
particularly at night, is crowded with
doughboys; few male natives stray in.
German women found 1t an attractive
resort for = while, but now q sign in
the window warns them that "Women
without male companions are not al
lowed within"
Many shops have appealing English
signs in their windows. Some of them
confidently assert that English
Spoken" is within. German vendors
of picture post cards and souvenirs
continue to do particularly thriving
business. A shop in the "CoblenZer
Hof," fronting the Rhine, for instance,
advertises Twenty Views of the Rhine
Here for Sale, 8 Marks"
Despite the characterization rule,
many German booksellers guessed,
and guessed right, that numerous
American soldiers would pay real
money to pick up a smattering of con-
versational German; and in all book
shops you now find pamphlets teach
ing German in 20 lessons, pamphlets
of useful German phrases, and the
like. One sign in bookshop window
advertises "The German Interpreter.
Conversation With Pronunciation for
British and American Soldiers"
Nearly Breaks Record.