The Birmingham age-herald., 1921-08-14

WulGN 6eOeTdl A4iens the connldnulnS general stationed in Coblenz, later confirmed In response to a question | asked. Said he. Yes, I've found the worst penalty can impose is to threaten to send boy back to the states. Tn this connection 1t Is bat fair to say that in reply 10 the same inquiry asked to scores of our boys, there was a respectable minority who said they were fled up" on this for eign stuff and would welcome chance to return 10 America.
 The town of Cobleng Is in entirS charge of the American army, Al the railway station We found a booth for exchanging our French francs into German marks in charge of an American soldier boy Turning to have our bags taken care of we found another American soldier of fering to place them there in his lit- tie office until we should telephone back to him the name of our hotel informing us at the same time that all rooms had 10 be secured through the billetting office to which he di- rected Us.
 Get Mall From Home
 Nothing seemed too much for these American boys to do for us. That evening after we had gotton settled in OUT hotel we began to look the town over. Of course the American Express was among the first places visited. There We found some long expected mail, many letters from home, including one from the editor of The Age -Herald containing Rotary Ann's first letter. How long ago i. seems since that was written on board ship, midway. the Atlantic ocean.
 The thing that impresses an Amer ican most about Coblenz, and as for that all of Germany, is the cheapness of nearly everything. Due to the dis parity between the value of our dol lar and the German mark, one need only possess few dollars In order to be counted wealthy here now, Be- fore the war our ooilar would pur- ! chase five marks. today it is worth so. In other words a mark formerly worth 20 cents is now worth only cent and a quarter. The actual cost of few things here in Coblenz will best illustrate the cheapness of living. A room may be had at the best hotels for from 40 to 50 marks a day, about ! 90 or 60 cents. Meals cost from 20 to 40 marks, about 25 to 50 cents, a | shoe shine marks, 2 2ih cents, a taxi cab ,all over the city 30 marks, 3S cents. Street car fare 70 phenings, about one half of a cent. In fact any American who has as much as q 1 thousand American dollars ahead should come to Germany and enjoy | being independently rich for a while. l After a day in Coblenz, we decided to go farther into Germany and run over to Berlin. We traveled like mill | lionares all the way from Coblenz to 1 Berlin, about 13 hours on fast ex | press train, in sleeping car, at tn1 .tr IA | s3.50 each. In Berlin, having only one day to stay, we went to the very l finest hotel. hired an English speak 1 ing guide to accompany us the en- 1 tire day, show us the city in taxi cab. take us shopping. to lunch in | typical German beer garden, go with 1 us to a typical theatre at night and put us on the train for Coblenz. At | the close of the day l found myNper- sonal expenses t0taled slightly more than 1000 marks between SIP and i $15.
 Feeling of Germans
 We find that at lease as compare ed 1 to their feeling for the French and particularly the English the Ger I mans are very fond Of Ameri sans This may be best illustrated by an :. incident that happened in our rail- way compartment. on our way 10 Ser lin In addition to our party there were several Germans in the com partment. none of whom seemed to be able to speak English. conyersa ton among them was not very ac- tive; in fact, they appeared sullen | Presently one of their number ad- | dressed a remark to us in broken English saying he had spent six months once in England. Dr. Glenn replied that our party had recently been to England, but were from America Whereupon, every German in the compartment showed more hy fgesture than words. at least words that we could understand. his surprise (they had taken us for Eng lish), his pleasure and even delight For the remainder of the trip we were q party of friends.
 During our brief stay in Berlin. we met a number of interesting men and women, some of whom spoke English from whom we gained first hand i'm pressions of conditions in the father land AS might have been expected, there are many men of many minds but on the whole these people know they were whipped Ia question aoout which have often heard Birmingham people debate), bVt feel that with