Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1920-07-17
BUSINESS DEALS
OFTEN COMPLETED
IN VIENNA CAFES
Vast Sums of Money Change
Hands, But Joy Is Real
Aim of Resorts.
BY A. b. DECKER.
Correspondence Of The Stnr and Chi
cagO Daily News.


has always been noted for its cafe
life. There is cafe at every corner
and one or two in each block. From
morning until closing time these
places are filled. for the Viennese de-
light to sit in cafes. dream over the
papers and sip coffee. Afternoons and
evenings there is music, usually
good, and selected according to the
clientele.
Besides the cafes there are numer-
Gus bars, where foreigners poison
themselves with apple juice saturated
with carbonic acid gas and called
champagne. One bar is respondent
with American flags and a picture of
George Washington. The proprietor
is a naturalized American. Another
bar boasts Of a negro dancer who as
tonishes the American guests with
his f1uency in German and absolute
ignorance of English.
The cafes are old and respectable,
but the bars are modern and ugly.
Birds of feathers flock to their re-
spective cafes. There is the leather
the hardware dealers cafe and the
artists cafe. the students cafe, cloth
ing dealers cafe and so on. Indeed
each trade and profession has its own
coffee drinking place. Besides, there
are numerous staid places where en-
every Sunday afternoon. especially
during cold days, when it is impossi-
BILE to warm ones house. The news
paper correspondents live in the Cafe
Central, where they have access to
nearly every important paper in the
world.
Much Trading in Cafes.
The Viennese always did much Of
their business in the cafes. but it was
left to the schiebers. or illicit traders,
to develop cafe trading to its present
status. More carloads Of merchandise
exchange hands in the Cafe Atlantis
than in any business house.
The cafe which interests me the
most Is small place near the Danube
canal. There the money changers do
business I enter and take a table in
an obscure corner. The waiter brings
me very poor coffee and tell him to
send certain man to me. In few
er takes the opposite seat, and the
conversation. without any preamble,
starts on bank-note values. / get his
price. find it satisfactory, and the
money changes hands.
First: there here is a little calculating
4.
Many have done this before me. as I
can see by the much scrubbed white
edge. Business has been good this
morning. Ny man never cheats me
and always gives a better rate than
do the banks. He makes his profit on
quick turnover by splitting the, differ
ence between the buying and selling
prices.
This is not exactly a legal transac-
tlon, SO the money is surreptitiously
exchanged under the newspaper. Once
IN a while the police raid the cafe and
the money exchange is temporarily
transferred to another cafe. Govern
ment regulation does not interfere
much with free trade in this city
The exchange rates as noted in the
oinciai sheets are often marvellous
works of fiction. and bear no relation
to true values. The idea. of course,
is to boost the price of crowns. The
rates are always week behind the
zurich quotations. and often ignore
Al OUTSIDE influence. AS a result it is
pass through the clearing house. and
speculation is encouraged
MY friend. the money changer. has
nanoIeo as much as a million crowns
in one day. Sometimes he becomes
.rey ana tens me some of the
stamped notes were shipped by the
ton at one time in motor lorries over
the Hungarian frontier, where they
were exchanged for green money at
9 profit Of 80 per cent. Lately be-
fore the Jugoslavs stamped their
money it was good business to smnr-
gle in low series of thousand-crown
notes to exchange for dinars. The
Czechs paid their toll to the schie-
bers before they adopted the sokol.
Intended rs Joy Resorts.
Nevertheless. the main purpose of
the Vienna cafes is to afford a con-
genial place for idling and absorbing
conee ana music Three hours per
day would be a low estimate of the
amount of time each Viennese spends
in cafe. The walters know their
guests and hurry with coffee and ia
vorfte newspapers. When one wishes
70 pay and leave it is more difficult.
money. He has started life as a
piccolo, or understudy to a waiter.
After. his apprenticeship he was
thrown out into a cold world to learn
languages. and then he returned to
grind his way to the top as head
waiter.
Nearly every waiter now working
In Vienna-above all. in the restau-
rants-was interned during the war
in the Isle of Wight and returned
after the armistice. This long strug-
gle entities the head waiter to the
other walters from his tips and
counts a respectable income from the
remainder.
In cafe where several hundred
guests all wish to leave at once it is
next to impossible to locate the head
waiter and pay ones bill. OF course,
1t is only the foreigner who objects
to this waste of time. This is true
not only of Vienna. one finds 1t in
most Of the cities Of central Europe
Here time is not money. Time was
made to pass in a cafe Americans
who are in a hurry and are known
to the. walters. often rush out of
the cafe or restaurant. after trying
in vain to. get their bill, and pay the
next time they come in. But why
hurry to keep an engagement when
no one expects you to be on time?
This delightful condition is what
the Viennese term "gemutlich." or
6 .snsfa,a The word is poorly
really means friendly or sociable
comfort. To appreciate this one must
come to Vienna, sit in favorite
cafe. sip coffee and listen to a Vfen-