Bisbee daily review., 1920-02-01
STARVATION IN
 VIENNA ELBOWS
 R|OTOUS WASTE

VIENNA, Austria, Jan. 31.-The au- thorities recently authorized the pop ulation to cut and take fro mthe mum icipal forests that surround Vienna as much wood as could be borne on the back three times weekly. The plan was meant to meet the pressing need of people who could not buy or obtain from the public ration enough fuel to cook with.
 A fortnight's experiment showed that, with the complete destruction of one superb forest park of 150 acres, only a fraction of the wood went as intended, while organized bands of profiteers cut and sold 20,- poo, ,000 crowns worth.
 The incident is typical of profiteer- ing conditions in this capital. The papers daily report the frustrated or successful smuggling and out of the country of contlaband articles and commodities. A band of Spanish smuglers recently was caught on the northern frontier with large quanti- ties of gold, silver and platinum which they were trying to take out in auto mobiles. Phe low exchange value of the Austrian crown makes smuggling
  perate chances. The frontiers are guarded closely and everyone seach- ed, but the left hand trade is un- checked.
 Money can still buy any necessity or any luxury here. While the mass of the people are hungry and cold and ill-clad, the splendid hotels and restaurants continue so crowded that ss ,,.l A1 ,n1A a reservation is made for table. In crowns the prices are fabulous. A simple meal costs the months salary of an office man, yet profiteers and alien spectators throng them as well as the cabarets and night amusement places of all kinds
 On the one hand is luxury and reckless spending and on the other starvation. The swarms of street beggars increase, men, women and children with their insistent appeals. The cheaper coffee houses are filled from opening I.fo closing with those drawing their 15 crowns daily out of work subsidy. Strikes and threaten ed strikes bring enormous increases of pay, and, prostrate under 1t all, is the middle-class, the professional and clerical ranks who have neither organization nor resources. They are not entitled to out of work pay nor enabled in any way to. increase their incomes.
 Vienna presents curious contracts. Nearby is shop once famous for it's delicacies. It's windows are dressed with timed salmon, a few sardines, both to be had only on a fat ration card, some imitation liquors and scaly-looking bonbons. %z
 In the great shopping streets of the inner city the windows are filled with magnificent furs, works of art, tailored costumes, dainty silks and other women's wear, jewels and oth- CT articles de luxe. But for sturdy clothing, for shoes and woolens, for those things that populace needs in hard winter cline, for fats and flour and sugar, one can search Vienna in vain A diamond or rare painting, tapestry or sable coat, dainty glass ware or exquisite leather and porce- lain things can be found in the Karnestrasse or the Graben or the smart shop streets that radiate from them, but the owner of any one of them will sell you more readily for bacon, flour or sugar than for crowns, Recently many shops have refused to sell except for established foreign moneys although such a procedure is in direct violation of the law. -.
 The government daily quotes tho official rate of exchange at which foreign money will be cashed in its own bureau, but this means nothing as affecting private transactions in banks and with money changers. Some days these will give from ten to twenty points more or less than