The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1921-06-29

Vienna, June 2e-Do you want to sell a handful of jewels or wagon load of grain--anF no questions ask ed? There Is a market in Vienna where 1t can be done.
 If you are a Philistine you have probably wandered in and out of the short sojourn in the city without re- alizing that you were in the most fla nous "schieber'' exchange in all Cen tral Europe and the Near East. For the Atlantis cafe bears no visible sign to distinguish it from any other coffee house along the Rfngstrasse. Only the dealers in illegal traffic have put their cross over its door, and if you belong to the famous interna- tional of the profiteers, beside which the Third of Moscow is harmless as a dove, be you Italian. or Serbian. or Hungarian, or German, the Atlantis is the Mecca of your Journeys.
 It stands on the busiest Vienna Hotel Behind it's plate glass win dows, candidly open to every passer- by. is a large room, upholstered in red leather, with comfortably padded benches along the walls and around the posts which support the ceiling. Arm chairs are fitted into cozy hooks, and efficient walters tr0t from table to table. carrying syphons, filling fee thickly out of little copper mugs The orchestra, goaded by a tempesa- mental conductor, sighs out the strains of a heavy. honey-sweet vien- nese valse. Altogether a typical Vienna cafe.
 But if-instead of burying your nose In the Neue Erie Presse or the Ar better Zeitung. both of which are frames fitted with handles-you look about you keenly you will hear strange whisperings and see hands reaching out to each other under you will see something gleam in transit Or you will see eager heads bent together over some small pack age wrapped in tissue paper, and over and over again will catch one word, "Quanto?" "Skolko?" '"wie viel?" How much?"
 The Uninitiated Barred
 If you want to do business in the Atlantis you must know the ropes This is no place where you come in, put down your money and ask for what you want. You would be thrown out if you did, with indignant protests that this is no shop. but a which table to go in order to dispose of grain, jewels. money, women.
 Yes. even women are bought and sold, so they say, in the Atlastis cafe Pretty Viennese, with their shoes run down at the heel and their stockings in holes, are offered positions as ac- tresSes in Rio Janerio Of Buehos Aires and are contracted for and shipped away. What becomes of them afterwards no one knows. but many hazard a guess.
 When you have seated yourself at what you judge to be the right table the conversation begins in cryptic phrase Recently a man said to an- other 1aconically: T have a wag- on"
 The other .(equally laconicaiiy). How much 2" ~
 The first man named his price.
 The second: ''Very dear. White or spotted?"
 The first, snorting. White or spotted. Are you crazy?" And he goes away in a hun- He had been trying to sell wheat at the bean ta- blei
 Around the different tables differ ent nationalitfes gather It is mostly Jews who slip watches and cigarette cases and chains of pearls from hand to hand at the jewelry table Dark eyed and excitable Italians gesticu- late in another corner over objects dart; and Austria's pictures. ceramics and gobelins change hands around glasses of coffee The Italians are l the nnfsiest- and so-a< hahftue -of tho