The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1922-09-08
SWISS WORRIED WITH SURFEIT
 OF WEALTH
BY HERBERT M. DAVIDSON, International News Service Staff
 

SOrfeSpOnUenG.
 Lucerne, Sept. S.-Remember the fairy story of the little girl whose DOT ridge or corn meal mush or shredded wheat, or whatever it was, turned to pure gold?
 Somehow or other she was saved from starving to death-some fairy prince or other cooked her an ome- lette just in time-but she never wish ed for gold after that. She was just exactly like the Swiss people this summer. Common as Goats. Gold in Switzerland is as common as mountain goats. Twenty-franc gold pieces-the louis of the French Empire, Belgian pieces. Italian pieces, some of them rare enough coins from before the middle of the last century-pass from hand to hand and are as plentiful as coffee checks in a cafeteria.
 But they won't buy anything. And | except a few better-to-do tourists comes to buy what Switzerland has | to sell.
 sell is scenery. Scenery, with all the 1 trimmings. Other parts of the world have lakes and mountains we have | 'em in our own national parks-but no place except Switzerland has lakes
  | to be looked at with no exertion what l ever.
 i Any American family-including grandpa and grandma-who have never so much as walked three blocks without calling upon the ministrations of the family fuvver, can rough it'' in Switzerland without even getting | out of breath.
 where they are made to feel by prac- ticed Swiss hotel people that they are | the express individuals whose comfort | the proprietor had in mind when he established the house, ride on a swift even-keeled boat on a placid lake to | the lower terminus of a cog-rallway ascend a mountain, sleep there in an other first class hotel, where they are persuaded they are enjoying an or1- ginal adventures; view the sunrise and descend again to the same swift boat all without so much as one single solitary pant.
 This process they boast about back Lake City as climbing the Rigi." 1 Scenery Not Working But this sumner the scenery ism working properly. It isn't a scene shifters' strike, or anything like tha Bluntly, it's that the thrill of Rig climbing and other Swiss outdoor | sports cost too many hard American dollars or nearly equally solid -Brl | tish pounds.
 
 ists eager to get on the travel maj again as it was before the war, Swift zerland has recevied the shock of it life.
 In several languages-the Swiss Inever express themselves except mul tiungually; if you can believe the sign in the large cities-the people of Swift
 zerland sigh for the good old day
 when there was less gold and nor guests.
 Switzerland gives the impression o
 having more hotels than privat
 homes Before the war every summe
 found all these hotels crowded, or, a
 worst comfortably filled. This yea
 whole hotels stand practically empty
 Many have shut down.
 l Quaint, attractive places around tn Lake of Lucerne-hotelS with hug
 gardens and marvellous views-serV dinner in the eVaning to scattere groups of guests that remind one O
 a college class in trigonometry tn
 afternoon of big football game There is at least one waiter to a guest When a new guest arrvies he is al but carried to his room on the shoul 1 ders of the hotel proprietor and tn
 concierge. The line of empty omni 5 buses at the railway station is as de pressing as funeral.
 1 Great quantities of the American
 who came to Europe this summer pas through Switzerland. But they pas 3 throughl They go on into German . or into Austria, where a dollar al most ObscureS the sun.