Evening star., 1923-01-28
MEN AND AFFAIRS
BY ROBERT r. SMALL.

and he can assume from the sxer-
else OF the sense Of smell that a
crime against Volsteadism is being
)rerpetrated. he has the right to en-
ter and search without the interposi-
tlon OF the usual warrant.
The departments task now is to
get the keen smellers. The jobs are
open. But woe to the smellers who
get the wrong scent. 1t is one thing
to trace guilty odor to it's illegal
lair, but 1T Is quite something else
again to get on a false scent and
enter g.. perfectly innocent home.
which might unhappily be on the lee
side OF hoochery a block or more
away.
-x 4. 4 x
Speaking OF rum. Washington had
its great rum thrill last week. The
police announcement that they had
! traced the '1eak'' of "enbassy liquor
to servant in the Cuban legation.
Naturally the Cuban minister was
indignant. A quick inquiry in the le-
cation proper convinced him there
was no leak and go he immediately
demanded of the State Department
and the police that something be done
at once to clear the good name of the
legation.
This clearane has come about in a
most convincing way and the Joke is
on the rich clubmen OF the city who
have been paying fabulous prices for
'the real legation stuff" which has
turned out to be nothing more than
synthetic gin and whisky, made right
here in some dark and damp cellar
A cornered bootlegger told the pc
lice that he had been getting his
STUFF through the Cuban Legation.
He concocted the story to save his
reputation with his high-class ."cus-
| TONER'S" He had been charging them
| anywhere from $1S to S22 a quart for
| goods" that cost about a dollar u
stock Of legation STUFF has
dwindled under police investigation
to less than a quart of what appears
to be real whisky. The chemists are
even inclined to doubt that. It is
funny how men who claimed TO be
such connoisseurs of whisky in the
/ pre-Volstead days fall for the awful
"hootch' now peddled as the real
| thing.
Some more amazing figures have
! just come out of Germany telling of
the Generalization of prices which
have followed the French invasion
The diminished buying power OF the
| mark was considered bad enough
! when that relic of a one-time stable
currency was quoted around 1000 or
5000 TO the dollar. But now that
the mark has descended to the neigh
borhood Of $4,000 to the dollar, with
| relative deterioration in all the other
stabilized currencies of the world.
Germany is all but without a medium
Of exchange.
Naturally the prices quoted nova
days in marks have no literal mean
ing because they can't be compre-
hended. But the plight Germany is
in today and the plight she will
continue to be in for years to come.
regardless of any action against her
by her former enemies. may best be
realized by the fact that before the
war person worth 10000 marks was
supposed to be possessed of com
Portable fortune. something to last
a lifetime with thrifty handling OF
the money. Today an ordinary dress
in Berlin costs 100000 marks. A pound
of meat costs 900 marks, while a pound
of pork, dearer still to the German
heart, costs up to 1.4e0 marks. Red
cabbage, also SO dear to the German
heart. costs 10 marks a pound-the
ordinary equivalent of $3.50. Beer
that good German beer we hear so
much about-costs 90 marks, or the
normal equivalent of S2250 a bottle
Coffee costs 1000 marks. or the nor
NAL equivalent of $1,000 a pound.
Wages, of course, have not kept
pace with the increasing price of
! food and clothes nor have profes-
Sfonal fees. Persons who derived
| their income from investments paying
a given dividend naturally have moth
ing to fall back upon at a time like
this.
II it be true that Germany has
purposely wrecked her monetary sys-
tenn, as some of her antagonists be-
| lieve, that wreck has been complete
beyond the widest dreams of the
wreckers.