The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1920-02-02
PEOPLE HAVE TO CART THEIR OWN
 WOOD IN VIENNA
New System Intended To Foil Expectations of
 Profiteers.
LUXURIES TO BE HAD
 IN AUSTRIAN CAPITOL
Rich Are Enjoying All Com forts of Life While Poor
 Starve.

Vienna, Feb. 2.-The authorities recently authorized the population to cut and take from the muncipa. 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 ob- tain from the public ration enough fuel to cook with.
 A fortnights 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,-
 100000 crowns worth.
 The incident is typical of prof. teering conditions in this capital. The
 papers daily report the frustrated or
 successful smuggling and out of the country of contraband articles and commodities. A band of Spanish s1nugglers recently were caught on
 the southern frontier with large ! quantities of gold, silver and plat mum which they were trying to take out in automobiles. The low exchange value of the Austrian crown makes smuggling tempting game and men | take desperate chances. The from tiers are guarded closely and every l one searched, but the left hand trade is unchecked.
 Money can still buy any necessity or any luxury here. While the mass | of the people are hungry and cold 1 and ill-clad, the splendid hotels and restaurants continue so crowded that | it is impossible to be served unless l a reservation is made for a table. ! In crowns the prices are fabulous. A simple meal costs the months salary of an office man, yet proffteers and 1 alien spectators throng them as well | as the cabarets and night amusement
 places of all kinds.
 On the one hand is luxury and 1 reckless spending and on the other starvation. The swarms of street l beggars increase, men women and
 children with their insistent appeals 1 The cheaper coffee houses are filled i from opening to closing with those l drawing their , crowns daily of out i of-work subsidy. Strikes and threat 1 ened strikes bring enormous increas- 1 es of pay, and, prostrate under it all. 1 is the middle-class, the professional
 and clerical ranks who have neither | organization or resource. They are not entitled to out-of-work pay nor enabled in any way to increase their | incomes.
 Vienna presents curious contrasts
 Nearby is a shop once famous for it's delicactes. Its windows are dressed | with timed salmon, few sardines, | both to be had only on a. fat ration
 card, some imitation liquors and scaly-looking bonbons.
 In the great shopping streets of | the inner city the windows are filled
 with magnificent furs, works of art,
 tailored costumes, dainty silks and l other women's wear, jewels and other i articles de luxe. But for sturdy l clothing, for shoes and woollens, for | those things that a populace needs is 1 a 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 glassware or exquisite leather
 and porcelain things can be found | in the Karnestrasse or the Graben or | the smart shop streets that radiata
 from them, but the owner of any one
 of them will sell you more readily l for bacon, flour or sugar than for | crowns Recently many shops have
 refused to sell except for established
 foreign monies although such a pro-
 cedure is in direct violation of the law.
 The government daily quotes the official rate of exchange at which | foreign money will be cashed in it's 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 the official rate according to their own judgment of conditions. There are daily rai6s on illicit money
 changers in cafes, hotel corridors and in the side streets of the Bourse.
 often netting millions of crowns, but
 the game goes on.