display, which contrasts painfully with the picture offered by our own war vessels, neglected, unpainted, and ill-found, like poor relations by the side of their prosperous cousins. But, gentlemen, that will not continue. We have played a very respectable part in the world of late. With such comments, he takes me off to a little café, which I at first suspect is his favorite camping ground, but I am mistaken.

He explains: 'I am going to introduce you to a tribesman from Morocco who has come here to market his goods. He is a date merchant and the oasis where he lives disposes of its crop here. They open their gardens to us, but their hearts remain locked.'

In the obscurity of a little low room filled with customers in woolen caps, fezes, or white head bands laced with cords of camelhide, he points out a swarthy-visaged, gray-bearded man who is sitting with his eyes half closed. We approach and interrupt his dreamy mental siesta. His eyes open and although his features retain their composed expression I am conscious that his glance pierces me as sharply as a rapier. At the first words of my friend, who speaks Arab fluently, he purses his lips thoughtfully, and extends his fingers toward me without moving his arm, which reclines on the table.

While three minute cups of coffee are being placed in front of us, and my friend discusses the price of dates with the man from Morocco, and the two revive several reminiscences as they slowly sip their coffee, I discover that I have in front of me a shrewd, alert-minded man, possessing an intellect sharpened and refined by long meditation, а man of deep sentiment, although that sentiment is expressed in a restrained and lowly modulated voice, and though his

expression would be one of complete detachment were his feelings not revealed continually by the fire in his eyes. The officer translates to me their conversation, of which I will give a few extracts:

'You complain because the French have invaded the oasis. However, they are protecting you from the attacks of the nomads.'

'At the price of our liberty.' "They have built roads.' 'We have no vehicles, any road is good enough for us.'

'But a railway has been constructed near the oasis.'

'It carries cannon.'

'But it carries other things. You used to have only barley. We have brought you wheat, tea, sugar, and many other new things.'

'Quite true, but our fathers lived as long as we do and they never complained. Our wives formerly had sugar in their tea only once a month, and were content; and now they want it every day, and we have to work harder. The fact is, you merely have brought us new wants and new cares.'

'Your children will not think so.' "They are too young for us to be sure of that.'

I was learning something I had already suspected, that a mere improvement in physical conditions does not make people happy.

The wind had continued from the southeast so we left on the day we planned for the Kabyle country. The journey is a long one, across three political departments and through three distinct kinds of country. First we traveled over the coastal lowland. It is a land of great estates. The plain is dotted with tenant houses in little clumps of trees. Great vineyards appear, whose long rows of vines lose themselves in the distance in an indistinguishable mass of foliage. Next

we come to the foothills. Trees disappear, the declivities become more numerous. Our altitude increases. The grain fields make a green band halong the borders of the river. The

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hillocks are cultivated to the very top without leaving any waste land for thickets. The young oats and wheat have thrust their spears through the spring soil like a legion of warriors. Then we cross the river, and the ascent at once becomes steeper. Our driver is skilled and experienced, and the view is enchanting. We pass enormous motor-busses packed with journeying Kabyles; some are constantly dismounting and others taking their places. We are coming to a more thickly populated district. Groups of farmers are returning to their villages after the day's toil. The latter are built like fortresses to resist the attacks of hostile tribes; and cap the sharp peaks with their compacted mass of yellow houses like pineapples. On either side the route the slopes of the mountains are a continuous fruit garden. At this season these are still yellow, for the countless fig trees have not yet put forth their leaves. Neither have the grapevines. The latter are never pruned and intertwine in dense confusion. Here and there an olive grove patterns the landscape. Little fields of barley on narrow terraces make bars of brilliant emerald in the scheme of paler colors. High above all, on the crest of Djurjura, a trace of snow is left as a witness of the recent storm.

We arrive rather late at the hospital of Sainte-Eugenie. Here the country is more sparsely settled. I notice some convalescents returning from a walk. They salute us by lifting their hands to their foreheads like our soldiers. I am told that there are many Kabyle women among the patients, but rather

fewer men. They are quite willing to come to the hospital for treatment. Mussulmen and Christians live in peace, and throughout this country there are scattered Christian families among the natives. We visited several establishments of the White Sisters and the White Fathers in this vicinity, and have been truly surprised at what they have accomplished in the way of introducing French customs and ideas among the common people.

The chamber assigned me looked out over a precipice into a deep chasm immediately below; so profound was the silence that it made me wakeful. I went to the window. It was screened by the leafless branches of a walnut tree. The opposite slope of the mountain seemed like an Oriental rug hung in the distance, with the pattern indistinguishable in the dim light. But the moon was rising and the air that filled the valley was luminous with its diffused rays.

Next day we explored the district. I saw some sixty meters above me groups of women coming down to a fountain, or returning to a neighboring village. They used a trail which they alone are permitted to travel at certain hours of the day. They wear no veils. Most of them were clothed in robes of light red fabric carelessly worn. Around their heads a coil of knotted cloth, sometimes white and other times red and yellow or old gold. It would have been a pretty sightbut alas, we must bid farewell to the amphora. The Kabyle women are not devoid of grace; but when they rise from the fountain and poise their heads and place their hands on their hips to steady their burdens it is not a graceful jar whose classic design completes the picture. They carry water nowadays in water nowadays in square, tin kerosene

cans.

ALL the evil conditions which have resulted from the war, and which we are deploring here, exist in Germany, only to a far greater degree. The high cost of living and the consequent underfeeding, the social unrest and the strikes, the shortage of coal and its results, the disproportion of pay for manual and intellectual work, the profiteering, the superficiality and immorality, the unemployment, the housing and the servant problem, the shortage of raw materials and goods of all kinds, which we know in England, can be multiplied by two, by ten, or even by twenty to represent the conditions in Germany. There is not actually much to tell that is new in kind; but the effect which a disorder of such dimensions has on people's lives is different; and with this effect, necessarily not a good one, we are concerned for two reasons. We want to face these facts in order to mitigate some of the suffering of thousands of innocent people as far as we are able, and, secondly, in order to avoid similar suffering in our country by taking timely measures.

From the steps taken to solve the housing problem, for instance, we might learn something ourselves. No person in Germany is allowed to have two houses for his own use. There is also in most towns a proper system of billeting homeless people on those

who have any spare room at all. Frankfort is one of the towns in which this is carried through most strictly, owing to the great influx of Alsatian refugees and of students to the university founded there just before the war. There is hardly a middle or upper class family which has no stranger living under the same roof. In the case of big houses a whole story has to be given up, and is converted into one or more flats. People living in flats have to give up the attics belonging to them, and should the flat be larger than the size of the family actually requires, even rooms within the flat have to be ceded. No spare rooms are allowed. Visitors must go to hotels, provided they can find room there.

These measures, though not yet completed, are carried out very thoroughly. Committees visit every house, of which they have exact plans, and decide on the number of rooms which have to be given up. Neither age nor illness is taken into account. A reasonable rent is paid for the rooms taken and an allowance is made for necessary alterations and for the putting in of stoves and kitchen ranges; for the lodgers cannot demand the right of using the kitchen and bathroom of the owner, though it is often granted by private arrangement. In cases where circumstances and social

standing allow it, the lodger becomes a boarder to simplify matters. This upsetting of the home and family life, with its many complications, is the despair of the housewives; for those who were not wise enough to choose their lodgers themselves in good time often get the most unpleasant people thrust upon them, and must live with them in daily fear for such of their property as is accessible to the unwelcome guest. It may seem hard not to be master in one's own house any more, but these drastic measures are justified by the necessity of providing homes for the thousands of refugees, for the young married couples, and for all those who cannot make their living in the country.

But the greatest problem which each family has to face is how to find the means of livelihood, to keep pace with the ever-rising cost of living. There, as here, the wages of the working-class have gone up tremendously, and a certain class of business men is doing extremely well. But, there, as here, the salaries of professional men have risen very little, and though the government is trying to help them by grants, salaries cannot keep step with the extraordinary rise of prices. When, to give an instance, the price of a necessity such as fat can rise from 15.50 marks in October to 28 marks in February, and when many articles. rise to double their former prices in a few months' time, it is too much to expect any small fixed income to be elastic enough to meet the case. If salaries and wages have risen to allow at least of some approximation of income to expenditure, those dependent on pensions and the interest on a small capital, ample enough before the war to assure a comfortable life to an old couple or a maiden lady, are now absolutely unable to maintain their former standard of living. All such

people, and practically all professional men and officials, are now living on their capital, and where the capital is small, are viewing the future with great anxiety. There are many respectable families who are slowly selling all their silver, and will not know what to do when the last spoon has gone.

It is very sad to see this class of people going under, for it is going under by degrees, and may disappear entirely to make room for the new society. These nouveaux pauvres were the true citizens who most conscientiously obeyed the heavy restrictions laid down in the rationing laws, and who were the last to break those laws when it was no longer possible to keep alive on the rations alone and when every other class had long taken to providing food by more or less illicit ways. They were the ones who gave up every silver and gold coin and all their brass ornaments and pans while others hid them. They were the ones who invested their money in war loan, to save their country, and many a faithful servant with them who will have lost the earnings of a hard life. Is it surprising to find decent people bitter and cynical when they see how virtue is punished and selfishness rewarded, how only those who hoarded food and managed to eat more than their share have kept in good health, how those who hid their coins now get far more than the former value for them?

There is now a sort of freemasonry between these nouveaux pauvres, who even talk of wearing some badge to show that, though they can no longer afford to wear good clothes, to go to theatres and concerts, they yet lay claim to belong to the educated class as distinguished from those nouveaux riches who as yet have not acquired the simplest forms of behaviour.

There are a good many humorous stories current about the lack of manners of people even in the highest positions. This change of society is very visible in any theatre, while the concert public is not quite so changed, concerts being still comparatively cheap and appealing to a higher standard of education. The cost of intellectual pleasures has not risen in proportion with the rest. A seat in the stalls of the Frankfort theatres can be got for ten marks, a stall at the opera costs about twenty marks. Books are rapidly getting scarcer owing to the shortage of paper and the cost of production. The quality of the paper is very poor, though what can be done with paper is shown by the coverings in railway carriages, hardly distinguishable from a strong linen material. The average cost of a book is fifteen to twenty marks.

The old middle class is dying out, for the health of thousands is undermined through years of underfeeding. Their minds are depressed and worried by the daily struggle for life and the dark outlook, and every disease that breaks out, notably the influenza, which is again very rampant, takes a heavy toll of life. The new middle class which is springing up so rapidly consists mostly of what is known as the Schieber, the profiteer. Be the small business man, workman, or Jew, he knows how to take advantage of the abnormal conditions created by the rate of exchange and the shortage of food and other articles. Though he may not actually do an illegal thing, he acts in an extremely selfish and unpatriotic manner. His only excuse is that the temptation is very great, so great indeed that it is difficult for even the very highestprincipled merchant to resist the slow poison of selfishness which permeates the whole life of the nation. Only if

one has seen the moral effect produced by years of suffering and privation on respected and self-respecting people can one judge the sad results with some fairness. The loftiest-minded man had to come down to things material, and now talks of food and prices like the rest. The unselfish have become selfish and the selfish have become more so. The saddest change in the German people seemed thus to be this general lowering of the moral standard directly caused by the hunger blockade.

Needless to say that crime in every shape is rampant. The abolition of the censorship in theatres, cinemas, book and postcard shops, does not help matters. Robberies in the streets are so frequent that no lady dares to go out alone after dark, and successful attacks on jewelers' shops are carried out in broad daylight. No door handles, doormats, stair carpets, rods, or metal plates are safe. The general attitude and the relaxing of police organization are illustrated by the fact that war cripples suffering from shell-shock sit begging in the chief thoroughfares, and that the town looks dirty, unswept, and uncared for. No houses seem to have been painted during the war, the roads are in bad repair, and the public parks are depleted of trees, which have probably gone for firewood. The only motorcars seen are those belonging to foreigners or profiteers. Private cars or carriages hardly exist, and the tram service has been suspended for weeks at a time owing to lack of coal, or runs only workmen's cars early in the morning and at night. Bicycles have become a luxury because of the rubber tires. Carts drawn by oxen are a common sight. It can be imagined what loss of strength and time the lack of transport means to a busy doctor.