New Britain herald., 1922-09-15

were ordered out of the train wbh their luggage and slowly filtered through a passport control. Then | they submitted their handluggage to | examiners and were passed one by one through a closed booth where in- spectors asked them how much money they had. In some cases they made personal search of the pas sengers Passengers then opened their checked luggage which was all unloaded in the station, They were then passed through another control to make sure that their hand luggage all bore inspectors stamps and were permitted to enter a crowded waiting room where there were not seats enough for one tenth of the travellers. After delay of nearly two hours, and lengthy discussions with women who were charged with having pur- chased new wearing apparel in Ger many, all the passengers for the Dutch train were admitted into the | stihing waiting room The doors were then thrown open and the pas sengers allowed to re-enter the train.
 Fifteen minutes away, at this place, the performance was much the same. Again all the luggage and passengers were unloaded and queues moved slowly through the customs station. Dutch passport officials examine pas sengers' papers on the trains and save much time in that way But it took an hour to get through the luggage.
 Three hours in all elapsed between the stop at Bentheim and the resump- ton of the trip. and most of the passengers stood all that time The search of mems luggage seemed to be chiefly for tobacco or cigarett> At least that was what the inspectors asked about particularly. The Nv' gage of men apparently yielded lit tie contraband and was searched far less diligently than that of the wofn- en-
 All gowns, coats, evening wraps and other wearing apparel which looked new was taken out of trunks and bags and submitted to special in spectors who questioned the owners minutely about their purchases. In many cases duty was charged when the owners could not establish that their clothing was purchased outside of Germany. -..
 American tourists are very much annoyed by the s1o visa fee which European countries impose on Amer jeans in retaliation for the charge made by the United States.
 The weary American woman at Oldenzaal mentioned this: "The worst of it all is that one can't com plain about the ridiculous passport charges. We know that Americans deserve to be given a dose of our own medicine. But there is one con- gressman in New Jersey who will get fine piece of my mind when reach home. The high charges initiated by the United States have made the passport business so profitable in many of the smaller European coun- tries that a bureaucracy has lsen built up about passport offices which can't be broken down very easily And we American tourists pay the bill and suffer the inconvenience T should like to see every member of congress who voted for this s10 fee forced to go through all I have gone since May in this passport business.
 T personally can afford the money, | but there are lot of teachers and | other working women who came over here to see the Passion Play this year who had to curtail their trip be- cause of the heavy passport fees. It is pretty mean for our government to | run the State Department. at the ex- rense of women of that sort. Fortu- nately they all have a vote now and | congress will hear from them"