The Seattle star. [volume] (Seattle, Wash.) 1899-1947, 1920-02-07


of women.
MOTHERS PART WITH CHILDREN
SENDING THEM TO STRANGERS
These women mothers sending their children into
foreign lands into the hearts and homes of strangers that
the little might die of starvation before their eyes
check Some their hands over
and wnked back the Others reached thru the bars
OF the railing toward the babies calling out for them to come
for one last Kiss or entreatng them with muured pet
and loving phrases to be good obedent children
destroy order and create So they waved and threw
kisses and promised to be good children and love their foster
Then realized what it that put the terrible staring
brightness into the eyes of tiny Franz and Irma.
In order to live they must leave the mothers who loved
Presently the whistle sounded the engine hissed the
slipped of the station the very windows white with little
faces pressed against the glass The babies train had started
on its journey from famshed Vienna.
MANY CHILDREN LEFT BEHIND
TO GO IN THE NEXT BATCH
1t half hour before the pack of parents melted
from behind the barrier Few Spartan enough to con-
of sight and with shaking shoulders sobbed into
their ragged shawls and patched aprons.
Many children left evidently brought in the hope
that by miracle could be found for them the train
They will in the next batch which will be when cities
can be found which willing to take them. Already
10000 have been sent and it prayed that equal
number may yet find homes before the terrible winter has
run its course and taken its toll.
In the faces of the and they left the sta
ton could be read the tragedy of Vienna Not by any
they all of the poorest working classes There
goodly number of people of middlng prosperity,
whose income is inadequate buy the simplest
food SO shmken has the money value become in Austria
Not of all the crowd looked nourished and in
faces shadow that told they might not be there
when their children returned from the friendly foreign
tries
One told she had eaten nothing but black
bread and ana soup for Is days Another said for two
months she had not potato aho the food cards
allow 500 grammes per week, assured me-
STARVING, THEY'VE EATEN ALL PETS
EVEN CANARIES, GOLDFISH AND PARROTS
He said that among the poorer and middle classes there
not pet animal of any sort left in Vienna-not cat
dog a canary gold fish, rabbit parrot Every
has been used for food And he limited things far
But if the children only can be fed he repeated
and over. nothing else matters"
Farna is the staple, and there precious little of that
For example, the food card given each person who
active work calls for less than three pounds of bread
week, $50 grammes of fana 125 grammes of meat and
equal amount of fats which is useless apportonmen
since it rarely be obtained at all.
Fourteen pounds of coal per family per week is all that
is allowed The card also permits at intervals box of
sardnes candle, small of petrol and cake
of soap.
There is misery everywhere except among the small
wealthy class 1t written in the faces of the workers.
the hollow of the young mothers in the rkey bodies
of the poor little Riddles who walk alone at three
of and the tragic necessity of tearing children
from their mothers at the railway stations that they
may be shipped away to get the necessities of life.