TOPICS OF THE TIMES

Southland Times, Issue 18851, 17 June 1920, Page 4

TOPICS OF THE TIMES

During 1919, according to figures now av--d'hi.', lire remark".!.l, > epidemic of crime which set in throughout Berlin towards (he mut of the war increased enormously, and in January and February of (he current rear iii... refolds had been established by the criminal .'be.es. For instance, in 1917 there > ■ ,i.,ips eases of house-breaking in Berlin. The figure wa« 4500 in the following year, but in ID!!) it rose to over 12,500. •i breaking has greatly increased. Last year more than SHOO warehouses were broken into, and goads to the value of many edl'.itis ..f dollars were carried off. In 1917 there were 2500 cases of shop robher- -- - .Mi a big ■ .1 •. Last year the number »-;i- lit 190. Carpet# are among the chief iiri.:.- wid'di attract thieves, and little wonder. when the rise in the prices of carpets i- mu-id.-red (remarks the Berlin correspondent of (he New York Tunes). Persian carpets which Icfore the war cost 36 marks per sqm.re yard, now fetch between 2000 and ;;;;(!«.) marks. So many typewriters have Ire n .-to!.-it that a special department has Man -"-I up at Police Headquarters to deal with ,-uch (heft— Last year ten or twelve were reported daily .luring January and February. This year over 1200 machine- <!i.>appeared, in 1914 the police hat! to deal with one motor ear theft per month. Now il is a ca.-e of one per day. An atbotn.hiE- wailing outside the British iniliuuy mission's offices was recently stolen in or-red itayliglit. Thefts ironi hotels irch-E-d it; number and murders and other crimes i.ei-ompanied by violence increased about 400 per . .'in. in 1919, a- compared with the previous year. That the Orient is, in an increasing degree, i-ing permeated with at least a reading ’•t'cwl.'.lge of the English language, with an in n a-ed quantity and an enlarged variety of we-tern-made merchandise, and, consequently, with some degree of Anglo-Saxon customs and culture, is evident from a scanning of publications printed in the Engli-b language in the F’ar East. It is -1 ted, for example, that 300,000 pupils are gtadim!".d annually from the secondary anil higher schools of Japan who "may he said ;o p.a-e.-- ;he ability (n read English.” Am. ire n. ". methods of selling western .goods in the Orient is mentioned the instance of a foreign oil company operating in China. This concern, the sole purpose of which was to sell its kerosene oil, manufactured thousands of small oil lamps and sold them to the Chinese at cost, the quantity of oil that could be contained in the lamp being carefully conformed to the size of the purse of the Chinaman. Another novel plan that has been advanced for the purpose of extending the area of American sales in China, is the proposal that a combination of automobile manufacturers promote good roads campaigns in the different provinces for the purpose of increasing the demand for machines, which js already great despite the limited mileage of good roads.