Great Falls daily tribune., 1920-08-08
RUbLES WITH HOLES
IN THEM UNDER BAN
IN RUSSIAN STORES
Paper Bills Worn by Creasing
Are Passed Off Onto War
saw and Berlin.
Chicago Tribune Foreign News service)

Chicago Tribune Foreign News service)
Baranowich, White Russia, July 20
(By MaiD They recite the conundrum
When is a paper ruble not ruble :?
Answer, When it has a hole in it.
Rubles with tiny pinholes worn
through in the, center by creasing do not
pass muster in White Russia Shop
keepers will take them at the rate Of
thirty or forty kopecks, hoping to pass
them in change when the buyer is not
looking. or else to send them to Warsaw
or Berlin, where people who buy the
rubles for speculative purposes are not
aware Of the diminished value Of porous
currency.
Nobody knows the exact origin of the
discrimination against rubles with holes
Some blame it on the mojiks, others
blame it on the money changers and
spectators.
Responsibility Divided.
Probably both parties are entitled to
bear the responsibility. The Russian
moujik, whether he finds himself in
soviet territory or in the liberated
areas, has manifested q superstitious
affection for rubles printed with the
aegis Of the czar. He regards such
rubles as the only currency that is, and
money. And since he controls the food
supply, be has been able to get his way.
The result of the moujik's ideas has
been to keep in circulation the cur
rency of a defunct government, which
has practically no chance of being re-
deemed until an anti-bolshevik regime
is solidly established at Moscow and
Petrograd. In White Russia the Poles,
who occupy and administer the terri
~ fax q
rate of a ruble a mark, but the all
powerful moujik has refused to part
with his precious ruhles, and now the
czar's paper is worth two and half
times Polish paDer.
Ban On Holes.
The edict as to hopeless rubles mas
gone out from the cities, and has had
the effect of automatically diminishing
the value Of the moujik's boards
When the moujik comes to town to
do some shopping the man behind the
counter holds up the bills to the light,
scanning them for holes. AS rule,
the moujik finds that his money has
lost half it's value by being creased
bles, but he really isn't suffering many
hardships these days and can afford to
let the city man cheat him Il little.
The time was when the moujik was
so poor that he couldn't afford to be
cheated, but that was just the time he
was most exploited. The city people
would exploit his ignorance of values
and his natives tastes. He would work
the hardest Of the lot, and at the end
of the year would find himself in rags
and in debt Now all this has changed
The moujik wears better clothes than
the town dwellers.
He also wears leather shoes in place of
the sandals which in the old days he us
ed to carry in his hands and put on his
feet when he reached the out skirts Of
town.
For the first time in their history
the peasant women and their daughters
were wearing hats instead of shawls
Their dress today is not as bizarre or as
picturesque as it used to be. 1t is ap
preaching bourgeois standards. The
wedding professions in front Of the chur
ches, for instance, lack much of the pre-
war color, when the mixture of red
green and white shawls and home EN-
broidered blouses gave very resplendent
effect.
All this is part Of the same tale, the
tale of rubles with holes. Or. as one
might translate the phrase with poetic
licenses tale of dollars and dOUghnutS