The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1919-09-05
ITALIANS HAD
 WILD TIME AT
 BIG SHOE SALE Huge Crowds Rioted When E'ootgear Started Selling
 At Half Price. SOLDIERS FAILED TO QUELL DISTURBANCES HEobs Directed Vengeance Against Stores Owned
 By Profteers.

Florence, Italy, Sept. 5-If Dante NIghicri lived in Florence today he might be inspired to write another Inferno" with shoes as the prImc cause of evil. Nothing has been so evident during these postwar days as the need of Italians for footwear
 The recent rcbuc demonstrations backed by rhe Camera del Lavoro, or "cha Tsbcrs of labor" where stocks Of goods of all descriptions in tn" hands of pTOtitecrs in many cites were communicated and ordered sold at reduced prices, procipitated unusual somersiuits of trade but the widest ~c~alabIcs were in the shoe stores Here the Gem n.nd for shoes produced scenes of the widest disorder.
 In Rome, Milan. Forli. Bologna and Naples me search for shoes con r-uued many day. The struggles in each city were so great that few iaT abiding persons tried to procure shoes. There appeared to be no pretext for fitting anyon1. Shoes were handed out in boxes and the buyers took them seemingly not car ing whether they fitted or not just so they were on the basis of a fifty per cent. reduction in price It was a common sight to sec a man loaded up with shoes for his entire family
 To obtain admission to shoe stOrs was fully as difficult as buying a ticket for a World Series baseball game. For hours. the shCe-hunters would wait in long lines guarded by soldiers and police before they were finally admitted into the storerooms. Shoe merchants fixed two hours in the morning and two hours in the af- toruoou for the opening of their stor' : but the Iorg line was waiting for shoes several hours before the scheduled time arrived.
 Impatieuce on the part cs the crowds caused. in most cases the summary seizinE of goods and the resort to ra lsr ckinE. Food stores were treated first in this way but the IawIcssness soon spread to clothing and shoe shops. Stores ransacked would be depleted of every com modity-eatabIe. wearable or porta- bIe. There were examples in Spezia of carrying out all the comm .dities, loading them in a motortrucE, and taking them some four or five miles outside the city for distribution. Whole hoEsheads of wine were rolled out or the CltE III LlllS way anu us tributed.
 It seemed as if the mobs had 3es- ignated for them the stores to bc footed. There was apparently tle most systematic pillagius of those ac- cused of war profiteering. Merchants known to have violated governmental reEuIations by selling prohibited art cIes during the war, were treated in the same way.
 Soldiers sent to restore order in some cases were charged with ac- ceptinC fits from the rioters and at other times filling their pockets with eatabIes including biscuits, fruits, nuts and chocolates.
 The new situation created by the arbitrary commandeerinEs and fxir 2 If prices is now beginning to react. sstorekeepers are refusing to run their businesses on the new basis. while there is evidently a general shortaee throughout the various cities affected by the new economic changes. Many well-to-do families who have always been law-abiding, have found themselves suddenly unable to buy food. Some merchants have closed their shops and gone to summer re- sorts in the hope that when summ eT ends, the eruption will have subsiIed and there will be a return to norma I conditions.