The daily Gate City and constitution-Democrat. (Keokuk, Iowa) 1916-1922, 1920-08-06
'PROF|TEERs
OF CAY PARE[
High Food Prices Taking French Toll
Where People are undernourish-
ed and Over
worked.
ARE DYING LIKE FLIES
Wives Of Manufacturers Dress Well,
While Soldiers Wives Make
Their Own
Clothes
ARE DYING LIKE FLIES
Wives of Manufacturers Dress Well

[From a Staff Correspondent of the
United Press.l
PARIS, July Is. (By mail -"If
you want to rent house in Paris
today you have to wait until some
body dies was the statement OF
Nine. Marcelle Robert-Cremieux,
of Senator Robert
ICremieux.
HOUSEKEEPING agents arrive be-
fore the undertaken to list the late
renters home"
The cities are crowded, not only
because there Is no building going on
now, even after four years of war, but
because the country people are not
going back to the farm since they
learned that wages in the city are
higher.
Nine. Robert-Cremieux told me Of
her apartm experience. It
sounded like America She hunted
for year-then had to stay where
she was living.
1.-THE day has passed when Ameri-
cans can bring small fortune TO
France and live comfortably the rest
of their lives" she said
"Yon used to get lovely homes with
large living rooms, four bedrooms and
two baths for 5000 francs Today
they are over $4,000 francs with
money deposits-and then you don't
find them"
"Oh, living is very dear for the
French The exchange on dollars is
high and you do not notice. But poor
France! Ten departments invaded
no coal, limited transportation, no
building for six years."
This charming, educated woman
who looks after housekeeping and
marketing herself, compared market
prices.
Cheap cuts of beef are IA francs
"a kilo, about Is cents a pound, and
a leg of mutton costs about 81. Bat
vegetables are cheap. Wheat -four
lis high and still mixed with rye flour
as in war times.
France is today paying more for
every article than she did in the most
dangerous period of the war;
But Nine. Robert Cremieux and
other women of her class can pay
the prices How the poor French
mother is keeping family together !
learned of Mile. Perrin, head of the
Stars and Stripes bureau of the Amer
lean Red Gross.
During the war and the following
months, Mile Perrin has been direc-
tor of 5000 French families. Mem
bers of the American Legion adopted
the children of 5000 French soldiers
killed in the war.
no h,,1.
the 5000 have become self-support-
of the Red Cross.
But the women are giving out
said Mile. Perrin. "They have work
ed too hard for their children and
eaten too little themselves. We send
the children to the country for $50
francs month and let the mothers
rest"
But the French people are giving
out. They are dying like flies" said
a French dressmaker who told me of
six acquaintances who had died dur
ing the week.
.tOyerwork, too little food! Reac-
ton from the terrible strain during
the war! They catch any disease
that comes along.
"This dressmaker tells me that She
has an entirely new clientele; wives
of manufacturers, instead of officers
wives who are now at home making
their own clothes and even doing
their own wash. They no longer need
or can pay for Madame Liberge's
gowns.
They no longer visit gay tea shops
with beaux, as they did during the
war. The afternoons are no longer
a time for lively scenes and well
dressed women. And all this has
occurred since war times, everyone
agrees.
Madame Liberge confirmed what
Madame Robert-Cremieux said.
"The women don't want to go back
to the farms where lovely hand-em-
broidered garments seen in Paris
shops are made. They can earn more
in cities. Today l pay my appren-
tice 80 francs. Yesterday I paid ten
The lovely creations in gowns are
few but the dainty underwear is stu
nlentiful. However, the quality of silk
and muslins is not so good in the new
stocks Gloves that used to cost four
or five francs, about 81 in the old
days. now cost q francs and the
finest so or IS francs. Silk and cot
ton gloves are all that the French
women can afford.
everything in our stores is bought
by the tourists" the shopkeepers say.
Leather is still scarce and shoes
that were 25 francs before the war
are now four times that amount
And when you go to some OF the
battlefields you can understand now
tbe French peasants can sell their
and fruits SO cheaplv.
Around Chateau-Thierry fruitful
farms flourish again. You can scarce
" tell that garden patches had ever
been disturbed by anything more
deadly than a plowshare.
I asked an intelligent farmer on
the train how rural France could re-
cover so soon when so many men
had been taken in the war.
madame learned how to run farms
as well as bake shops and groceries
,1.opoa of the husband who