LIFE IN BERLIN.

Taihape Daily Times, 16 October 1917, Page 3

LIFE IN BERLIN.

HAMS £2O EACH; CAULIFLOWERS -is. An Englishwoman; the wife of a Swiss bank official, who has just succeeded ia reaching Switzerland, after several years' sojourn in Berlin, sends a vivid picture of the condition of the German people (says the London Evening News of August 12). Writing to a friend at Tewkesbury she says: We had a most beatuiful flat, with wonderful silver and linen, but nothin <* to eat. Mangel-wurzels and a few potatoes formed many a dinner. You can go from one end of Berlin to another and find nothing, except with your cards and when these are exhausted you have nothing more until the next week. A ham (when you find it) costs £2O; J-pint of bad oil £l. There are no soap, cheese, cake, biscuits, fat, coffee, tea, rice, cereals, soda cocoa, milk chocolate, sweets, jam, bacon, sausage or beer. Often there are no potatoes.

Our only weekly food allowance was as follows: 21 lb. of dreadful black bread (make of wood shavings inferior flour potato skins, etc.,) J flour, 1* oz. butter, 7oz bad meat, suzs. sugar; one egg per month. A cauliflower costs 4s, and a cabbage 2s. Nobody over five years has milk. Everybody is broken down for want of proper food. We have paid 10s for a pound of biscuits. One«- cannot buy a pair of stockings, without a police permit. The people are dead sick of everything That the seeds of revolution are fast being sown in Germany no one can deny but this oppressed, voteless people, crushed by the villianous police system, dare not speak, They know nothing of the real state of affairs. We did a little propaganda by lending them neutral papers, but, of course, we had to be very careful I always found the German people very kind and open-hearted, but the moment one touched officialdom they were worse than savages. Things looked very bad just before my husband left (he remained behind for some time). There were even soldiers in the Dreedner Bank, and everybody had to give a password before they could enter. The authorities were afraid of the niob. Such is life in Berlin!