Evening star., 1922-12-31
~ FRANK G.. CARPENTER.
BRUSSELS, Belgium.

~IIE. boat had left the Tartar
city of Kazan and was steam
ing slowly toward Samara on
its way to the Caspian sea.
TI,S pas scnsers had exhausted their
sT6rics and gossip and their eyes had
crown tired watching the great
!Srres of lumber drifting down
stream. So the four Americans on
hoard had sat down to play bridge.
Tho men at the table were all mil
lionaires. Indeed. each had 80 much
money that his bills bulged out the
satchcl beside him. Tho bets were in
millions. and they played for ten
= thousand II point. T.-s game went on
with wary ing fortune, winnings to be
caShed in at the end of the voyage.
At last the cry came that the boat
was nearing Samara. and they threw
their cards on the table and began to
count up. The winner was former
governor from the United States. who.
| venture, had acquired his great skill
in cards by his frequent stays at
French Lick. His winnings were just
$4,000, 900 rlSbles. an amount which.
when l was in Samara during the
great famine of some decades ago.
would have cqualed more than $780,
000.0o0 gold. Now, by the collapse
Of the Russian currency. it represents
10 more than so. or 900 cents. Now
q single cent equals 10000 rubles,
~ that "A man is 4 millionaire if he
has % cents in his jeans.
At a table in Paris the other night
IN American gave dinner with a
uillion-rublc note at each plate as
q place card. writing the name of the
guest ON its face. 1 have just re-
cetved a letter from Moscow. the
stamp upon which represents 100000
rubles. or what notw equals cents
When I last visited Moscow l could
have bought 100000 such stamps
FOR that sum.
This enormous decline of exchange.
not only in Russia but also in many
other European countries. is trying to
the faith of the peasants. and they
arc boarding such moneys as they
think may survive. Even the French
are afraid of the paper francs. and
the thrifty peasants have begun to
pack away in their woolen stockings
tho new aluminium bronze coins.
which are now issued for the franc
and half franc. They are worth no
moro than the paper currency. but
the people imagine they have intrin-
sic value.
DAEoN kORF'. i high Russian Off
ID ciai under the czar. tells me that
the peasants began to fear the de-
elm of the ruble as soon as the
bolshevikS started their printing
presses but they had faith in the
,zar rubies and believed that their
value might come back after this
crazy regime had passed away. There
fore. they saved them. hiding the
paper in the thatchcd roofs or dig
ging out y hole under the great brick
or stone stoves upon which they sleep
at night. As time went on il was
found that all the whisky or vodka
bottles in which that liquor was sold
when the czar government had the
monopoly for its manufacture had
disappeared. Those bottles were of
white glass and of various sizes. The
authorities investigated and found
that the peasants were stuffing them
with cZar rubles and burying them
tightly corked, in that greatest OF
safety deposit vaults. old Mother
Earth. The corks keep out the mois-
ture, and the peasants believe that
the money will sprout into crop of
real wealth when normalcy returns
to their land.
hear similar stories as to the
antics of the peasants in Poland and
others of the mushroom republics
which some of us think may yet be
transformed into sturdy oaks in the
international forest. One relates to
a peasant who lives not far from
Warsaw. He had offered to sell his
farm for 5o.0o0.000 Polish marks. Be-
fore the transaction was closed he
became alarmed at the way the gov
ernment was rolling out new bills
from its presses. So he went to the
huyer and said:
L am afraid of this new money.
and I would much prefer to have you
give me 5O.O0O,oO0 sheets of blank
paper instead"
go away" said the buyer. who was
a shrewd. thrifty Jew. You are
asking twice as much for your farm"
And the deal straightway fell
through.
My last story is from Austria,
where for several years the krone has
been ION the toboggan" and is carry
ing the country and people to finan-
Cial destruction. 1t has dropped 90
100 points within the past week. but
is still something under 100000 per
81. When I passed through Vienna
long before the world war every
krone was worth more than twenty
american cents. and 100000 would
have equaled more than 100000.
The story relates to a patient who
more in an insane asylum outside
Vienna He is a man of wealth, and
tho other day. when he escaped, he
had one of the old twenty-kronen
gold pieces in his pocket. In his
wanderings he met a taxi and took a.
long ride. When the chauffeur de-
mandcd his pay the figures on the
TAXI meter represented $4,000 kronen.
Tho Iunatic threw up his hands in
despair as he handed over his gold
piece. and he doubted even his own
insanity and was sure of that Of the
chauffeur when the latter handed him
back bills to the amount of $4,000
kronen as change.
4 LII this is a preface to some in