Evening Star Newspaper, December 23, 1923, Page 67

LONG CHINESE TUNIC OF BLACK VELVET, WITH NARROW BANDS OF FUR AND PEKING BLUE CREPE PANEL DOWN FRONT AND AT SLEEVES. THE SKIRT IS PLAIN, NARROW AND SHORT. SHE CARRIE: HOLDING THE GAME OF ¥ A CHINESE LACQUERED BOX AH-JONG. BY ANNE RITTENHOUSE. HE game of hah-long is up- sstting Amerloans, soclally and sartorially, It is chang- ing the commen language. Our children may have to learn the maddest language In the world it present conditlons grow apace. Some women out shopping seem to be speaking gibberish. They are actu- ally speaking Chinese. They glibly ask for Seki-Ye, meaning that they destde & necklace of cut crystals, the white ones which the Chinese call “frogen water”. They move on to another counter and ask for Ching Kara and Yu Chl, meaning that they ‘want the two new colors in fabrics. When women go to a party, they talk of Pung Chow, of East Wind, South Wind. When they meet om the street, they admire each other’s jew- elry, talking so all may listen of mut. ton-fat, No. 3 jade, Manchu jade, No. 43, clouded. They ask: “Did you get that from Mr. Tai, in Peking?™ or “Did you find those seed pearis and coral earrings in Lantern or broidery street? After a day and night of this, it's easy to realize that fashion has turned its hydra head toward the Celestial country. You are shockingly behind the times if you talk with bated breath of Paris and New York. If you don't know about things Chinese, make belleve that you do. Pick up the jargon. You can do a great deal by merely remembering that there are fifty varleties of jade. A slight uplift of the eyebrows when some one implies that her string of green glass beads Is Manchu, gives one an air of authority. If you buy a stripg of light green beads and look suuperior, the lesser Informed friends may think it cost ten thousand yen. Always talk in terma of yens and’gold Mex, when discussing prices. String all the geed pearls you can find, mix them with coral, wear as earrings or headdress and let those who envy you think they came from Peking, possibly from the great Mr. Tal, himself. If there's snything that looks llke amber in the house, wear it, 3nd say you un- derstand the Germans are flooding the east with synthetic amber—"what a pity.” 1f any shop sellsy Chinese embrold- ery, snatch it, make a shopping bag of it, and if a smart friend suggests that it came from Lantern street, in Peking, say sadly that you belleve the tourists have now picked up the best of all the old pleces. * k% T'S a great game, this Chinese con- versation. Half the fashions of the day are begotten of it. Tiny Chinese stores, tucked away In for- gotten corners are doing a rushing business. There are rooms in New York that strongly smack of Shanghal and Peking. in which Chinamen from ov= .| 81ass-topped tabl SPORT OVERBLOUSE OF HEAVY WHITE CHINESE CREPE, WITH THE FASHIONABLE FLAT BAND Ct OLLAR, TWO BUTTONS OF RED LACQUER, RED BANDS AT WRIST AND HEM, AND A CHI- NESE PAGODA EMBROIDERED AT ONE SIDE. THE CHINESE HAT IS OF NATURAL STRAW, RNED BRIM OF UPTU! LACQUER TAFFETA. THE CHINESE PARASOL IS OF HIGHLY VARNISHED PAPER, IN BRIGHT COLORS. scure quarters of the city are earn- ing & good living teaching the fash- fonable set how to play the various gambling games that go by exasper- ating names. These rooms are placed in big department stores, in sports shops; one woman of social prestige who wants to earn a living, has opened a luxurious place where one can get tea, learn Chinese games, be photographed as one plays in Chinese | costume, and buy Chine Jewelry, ' :0;“!!& eo-nlt!le cages, lacquered 8he’ Has invented the best of ail mah-jong tables and loft to those who are I the slant-eyed Mott street gentlemen how to mapipulate the fanciful dom- inoes which have ousted cards after centurtes of age. It seems Amaerican society has gone quite as Chinese mad as did French soclety in another century when court women ‘'would not be painted unless the background was a vase of great price. It is Franca which has revived this Chinese fnfluence in fashion, but it is America which has thrown cards to the four winds of heaven in enthu- slasm for the game which is founded upon .the Four Winds of Heaven. France led us Into discarding pearls for jade, when we have the price. We have learned to belleve that pearls are poor stuff against the lure of No. 1 jade or even its second and third slsters and brothers. One lady of pleasuure in Paris, who owns three long strings of royal jade is the envy of all those in the gay spots of Eu- rope, who desire such baubles of guc- women of wealth plan for jist one string of No. 2 jade at five thousand dollars the string. Rock crystal is the heart's desire ot those who want parfectly appoint- ed tables, who have put siiver of the board along with the table cloth and tall vases of flowers. It's glass, glass, everywhere; of colored Venetian, of “frozen water” Chinese crystal: of American imitation of everything. Rock crystal figurines are madly pur- sued by interfor decorstors. They are gifts to wives from wealthy hus- bands; they are tenderly taken out of to show to guests who can appreciate their cost and flawless beauty. ER NE woman has her third rock crys- tal elephant, the baby one, to go with the mother and father elephants and her ecstacy is out of bounds. No children owning new dolls play with more delightful seriousness than do a group of dinner guests at this house, marching the crystal tops up and down the mantel. Jade rings mounted In silver are desirable possessions, and so are bracelets. Even Japan skull heads carved of ivory, worn in the east as a talisman against evil, are worn here. Pagoda earrings are difficult to wear. Of that, there's small doubt, but that fact does not deter women from attempting to carry off this perilous fashion. These pagodas are made of seed pearls and swing from thin sil ‘wires. Even small birds, exquisitely jew- eled, swing from the ears The Chinese make much of these tiny feathered things, you know. Their birdcages are high works of art; they carry them on parade in the streets of Peking and gave their birds a taste of street life and open air by IMPORTED GLASS JEWELRY FROM PEKING WORN WITH LOW FROCK AT THE THEATER. . THE EARRINGS ARE MADE IN A SERIES OF SMALL PAGODAS BALL. carrying them on the fingers for hours on a stretch; take them to bank and office with them. Astounding as this trick may be to Occidental eyes, it is coupled in the memory of travelers with falcons, hooded and belled, that sit on the shoulders of white-clothed shelks, ‘who come in from the desert to gam- ble. At Giskra one sees sights such s these. The falcon's head strangely resembles the arrogant face of the shelk who owns it. The loose blouse of the early races in Asia has never lost its grip on peoples. Russians, Persians, Arablans and Chinese wear it today as when Phillp of Macedon was in the cradle. SUSPENDED FROM A CRYSTAL We have adopted it. The success of our short over-blouse preceded it. This season it is more Chinese than ever. Such tunics are worn with vel- vet or cloth skirts and will go inte the best sport costumery cf the spring. Interior decorators are amaszingly stimulated by the Chinese influence in clothes, urging upon us the revival of colonial furniture as a background to lacquer tables, idol and pagoda lamps, wail tapestries. Combine these with our clothes and all we need to complete the effects Is to suggest to the beauty, doctors that it might be well to give our eyes the Mongolian upward slant. (Copyright, 1923.) Austria Is Live, Going Country and Enjoys a Sound Money Basis BY FRANK G. CARPENTER. 14 Vienna. HAVE come. from the capital of | Czechoslovakia to the capital of, Yo new Austria. Fromone of the new Tosy baby capitals of Europe., to one thal: was gray-hairéd and wrinkled when our-National Capltal ‘was laid out along the Potomac; from one that was a city when Willlam the Conqueror landed in England to a| town that was a center of trade when the crusaders floated down the Dang ube on_their way.to. take Jerusalem from the hands of the Turks. It was only 180-years after Christ that my. old friend Marcus Aurelius dled on this spot, leaving the medi- tations we all love to read, and here Charlemagne built a fortress after he had wiped out the Germans. It was in the eighth century that he estab- llshed the margravate of Austria. It wae during the crusades that the town begun to build up its trade with the east, and from that time to this it has becn the great exchange mart | on thls river that practically joins Europe to-Asia. Think of that when you prate of the death of Vienna and say its pedple lie n a coffin, listening to the strokes ot the hammer as they nail down the lid. As for me, I do not believe it, end shall try to glve proof n the story that follows. On my way to Vienna I had some 1ive pictures of the lands that Austria has lost. I came here across Bobemia, Moravia, and Slovakia and via the Dapube. The city is 80 much the child of that mighty river that I did not want to reach it by ratlway, so I took train at Prague and rode for the bet- ter part of a day to Bratislava, the STEAMER ‘I'HECAI’I'AIN Olflbflmrlimmunmca NAMED capital of Slovakia, which lies on the banks of the river. There I took an Austiian sféamer and came upstream, | ighting the current, to Where I am now. On this trip I cut through Moravia, I am surprised at its wealth. It is bigger than Massachusetts, and it has as many peopie as Baltimore and Philadeiphia combined. Much of the country is beautifully rolling, and the hills are covered with forests. We passed many sawmills, and at the stations found lumber stacked up for hipment. There were mountains of pulp wood ready for the market, and ftelegraph and telephone poles on trucks going out of the country. The forests are well cared for. I saw no underbrush anywhere, and on my way through Slovakia I met old wom- en bent half double carrying great loads of poles strapped to their backs. Each had a small cartload, and the | poles extended three feet out rom thelr heads. The villages of Moravis are pros- perous, and the farmers are rich. Most’ of the houses are roofed with slate, and their stuccoed walls have been recently whitewashed. There aro many industrial centers and towns at every few miles. I spent some time at Brno, the capitak It has more than two hundred thousand thousand peo- ple, and is a little Pittsburgh in the | heart of a fat farming region. EE O ARTHER south the land grew richer and the soll seemed to fairly shout with the harvest. On both sides of the track large fields of wheat, oats and grass waved to and fro under the wind, and we could see nothing but crops reaching on to the horison. OMMANDS uouncns l}})flg‘gol LOST m JOBS IN mwonm WAR" ¥ “Not a -Dead One,” Says Observer After Traveling Through Nation Which Has Been The land is owned in emall plots. yBllni of the fields are ribbons of grain, potatoes or grase, which run along side by side. Often a potato fleld will be a thousand feet long and {not more than fAfteen feet wide, witha |rye ribbon of the same length on one side and a wheat ribbon sewed to the other. The farming ls good and the weeds are few, and not an inch of soll is wasted. There are treea on the sldes of every rosd, ditch and stream. They are all fruit trees, for these people I spant the night {n Bratisiava at a good hotel, where my room cost me §1.25, and drove thtough the cobblestone streots in & one-horse carriage before taking 'my steame: Bratislava belonged to Hungary and it was here that the Hapsburgs were crowned kings. The town was known as FPressburg to the Austrians and Pozsony to the Hungurisns. Its pop- lation numbers 100,000, mostly Slo- 'vake and Hungarlans, msny of whom are not over-enthusiastlo about the |new republic of Czechosiovakia. The steamer which brought us up to Vienns was one of four boats which ply between Rustchuk, in Bul- garia, past Belgrade to the Austrian capital. It was originally known as !the Monarch Line and, when plan- jned, the four boats were to be named after the four great rulers of the time One was to be the Kaiser Wilhelm, another Franz Joseph, third Ferdinand of Bulgaria, and the fourth, Mohammed V, who succeeded Abdul Hamid as Sultan of Turkey. Two of the boats were bullt during the war, and they were named re- spectively Frans Joseph and Wil helm; but after the treaty of peace it was decided to throw down the monarchs and put up the planetsfl, as stars which could not b subject to the wars of the future. They then changed the Kaiser and the Xmperor Frans Joseph to Jupiter and Saturn, and the two new boats which have since then been added have the name: of Neptune and Helios. L ! Imoxntuluclm-tomcu palace, which is my hotel. The strests were full of vehicles, and the. pavements crowded with the same moving about through & of the town, aad on the least one sees bht few ‘There are gome beggars, I but they are eastly satisfied with one- seventh ollc-l.m_ml 160 kronen, and every ene seems to give. Prater or at Sohonbrunn on s apparently as prosperous as of Paris or Bruasels. Vien: i expect every highway and stream to earn 18 own living. We found the ,same type of country in that part of iSlovakia through which we passed. only one cent, the people have recov- ered their courage and spirit and they are doing business as usual. Wages and the cost of living have come very nearly together, and the savings bank accounts are greatly increasing. The stores are again filled with fine goods. ‘Tha people are buying, and I under- stand that the factories are again making money. There is mno doubt that Vienna is coming back rapidly. The cafes and beer halle are full. Most of the industries are bisy, the bank’ deposits are piling up and the bankers are lending to finanoe new undertakings. The opera houses and theaters are filled night after night, and it seems to be only a question of time when Vienna will regain the prosperity she had In the past. It takes more than politics to sup- port a big city, Vienna under the em- pire had thousande of superfluous of- fiolals who are not needed now. These are being cut down under the mew arrangement with the league of na- tions, and the civil service clerks are finding thelr way into other busi- nesses. They will be producers rather than parasites, and they will add to the growth of the eity. The Vienns of the future-does not.depend upon politcal conditions. Its growth in the Dpast came largely from economio rea- sons, and the same conditions are in existence today. The reason why Vi- &na is a great oity {5 to a large ex- tent its geographical location, and, as Dr. Grunberger, the minister for for- elgn affairs, said to me this after- noon: “You cannot move a city like this any more than you can change the stars in their orbit. Vienna is in the heart of Europe, and at the croes- roads of the continent. The powers could do much to weaken her, but they could not, like the old genil whe roads of the morth and the south. was its geographical location that bas made the Vienna of oenturies past. It is that locatiom that will make it the gerat meeting place of the bankers and tradere of the futura ‘We are the strategic finansial and commercial heart of this part of the world, and will contiaus to be 90, until the Lord changes the geography o R **¥ e was in the foreign offioa, mear. the enormous palace in which the Hapsburg monarchs held their courts, that I talked with Dr. Geunberger, A tall, lean, wiry, angular man of perhaps Afty years, dressed In the froek coat of the diplomat. he looked like & practical business man, sad his actions and words were businese- like from my introduction to the close of the interview. He spoke in English, which I doubt not is the better from the fact that he has an Arherican wife; and he was not aversy to saying Just what he thought. I had asked him to put the eituation in & nutshell. He replisd: A little more than & year ago our condition waa degperate. Our momey ‘was as unstable ss that the mations about ma It wose-and fell over night. No one could do business. The merchant dared not buy, fearing that he could not get back the price of his goods when he sold them. The banker saw the value of his accounts disappearing. ‘The laborer could not figure’ on the amount of his wages, and the house- wife could not calculate upon her expenses. Our money had no value; it fell to 84,000 to the dollar and our credit was lost. “Then Dr. Seipel, our state chan- cellor, took matters into his hands. He counseled with our nelghboring states, Italy and Csechoslovakia, and we decided to see whether the league of nations had any value or not. We @4 not know that it had any value. ‘We doubted it, but our case was desper: and it was our only hope. Well, to make a long story short, we laid the matter before the league and it has come to our aid. Owing to that aid, we are now a new nation in spirit and action. Owing to It, we have the most stable currency in Europe, and our money has a gold value in the markets of the world. It has been fixed at 70,000 crowns to the dollar. It makes no difference whether a dollar is worth 100 cents or whether it is worth 70,000 crowns, provided the unit of value is the same. Our unit has been fixed for the past year. and our merchants are doing business as usual. Our people have regained their courage, our factories have started to work, and almost every one has come to be- lieve that life is worth the living and that it will be :o*:or the future * = FT'HE people are thrifty, hard-work- working and peaceful. Dr. Grun- berger tells me there is no danger of bolshevism. He says that even slthough the people were starving when the bolsheviks came up the Danube within two hours of Vienna and when. they came down from “BRATISLAVA, THE CAPITAL OF .SLOV. ES O CITY ONCE BELONGED TO mcufi%‘n n'u CRQWNED KINGS” Built Upon the Ashes of the War—Views of the Recent Achievements of the People Ex- pressed by Secretary for Foreign Affairs—Factories, Mines, Forests and Farms of the New Republio—Snapshots of Vienna and a Trip Up the Danube. Bavaria within a like distance of the Austrian border and were pushing as well as they could their propagands in from Poland and Russia, there was no Inclination here to join with then. These people 'speak German and they have a large amount of German blood, but they are mixed with the other races about and their German blood is like that of the Bavarian rather than of the Prussian. They are a happy people, easily satisfied. They are intelligent, with the ability to {nvent and contrive, and they are & conservative people who believe in doing business after business meth- ods, as is evidenced by the banking community, which is famous all over the world. Among the assets of Austria are its mines and its forests. Many think the land has no mineral resources. The truth is there is high grade iron —a mountain of it, which in normal times ylelds 2,000,000,000 tons a year. That means 40,000 carloads at fifty tons per car, or about enough to fill & track from New York to Phila- delphia. Most of these ores are used for making opem-hearth pig iron, and the metal is adapted to the making of fine steel and high speed tools. Thers are now 250 iron mills, more than 100 machine. factories, seven locomotive works, and nine automo- bile factories. The country has also magnesite, which is shipped in large Quantities to the United States. As to forests, the new Austria fis more heavily wooded than any of the countries of Europe except Finland, Sweden and Russia. It has 80 much forest that if its woodlands were lifted up and dropped down on New England they would cover the state of Massachusetts with : timber as thick as when the Pllgrims first landed. A great part of this is soft wood fit for making wood-pulp and paper, and a large part of western Hurope s supplied with such articles from here. They are turning out 150,000 tons of mechanical pulp and almest that much cellulose every year. They are making 180,000 tons of paper and 47,000 tons of this is news print, which is shipped all over the world. e It is true the country has no black coal to speak of, but the Alps give it great quantities of “white coal,” or ‘waterfalls, Which ‘will develop elec- tric power. Only a small number of these powers have beén deveioped. but those avallable are equal almost to the water powers of Switzerland and almost half the water power possibitities of France or Italy. They have already begun to electrify the railroads, a.4 & scheme is now under way which, when completed, will an- nually save in the nelghborhood of half a million tons of coal. The water powers capable of belng developed are in round numbers something like 3,000,000 horsepower. This, if I re- member correctly, is almost half of the potential water power of Niagara. On my way up the Danube I saw electric trains moving along the Aus- trian banks and I was told I could go from Bratislava to Vienna by elec- tric trolley. I understand that they have invented 2 new electric loco- motive which {8 superior to any_we have in Ameriea. The idea is that all the rallways will evenuu.lly be electrified. * ® * ¥ AUBTRIA cannot feed herself and she will always have to rely to a certain extent upon her factorfes, commerce and other industries to supply what cannot be raised on the farms. Nevertheless, the farms put THE BANKS 0K THE DANUSE HERE THAT THE HAPSBURGS together equal a traot one-fifth the size of Ohlo or just about as large as Massachusetts. They are found largely in the valley of the Danube and in lower Austria and also on the slopes of the Alps The farming is about the same as that I have de- scribed in Bohemis. The chief crops are wheat, barley, rye, oats and corn and the oountry annually ralses something like 1,400,000 tons of such grain. One ton is a good load for two ' horses, and If you would load that grain on wagons,’ allowing each wagon forty feet on the roadway, and etart the caravan at New Or- leans, supposing it could travel the ocean, it would reach from there to the Cape of Good Hope. It would be 11,000 miles long, or as long as the distance from London across the At- lantic and across the United States and on to Shangha! in China. 2 As to livestock, the country has 2,000,000 cattle, more than 1,000,000 pigs, more than half a milllon sheep and goats, and so many geese, chick- ens and ducks that if they werp di- vided equally there would be one for every man, woman and child inside the boundaries. In all this I have sald mothing of the industries. The country {s one of factorfes large and small. It makes machimery, furniture, leather and chemical goods. It has tens of - thousands of people hers making ready-to-wear clothes. and other thousands emgaged in manufacturing lingerie and underwear for all parts of Eurepe. Austria is also a great textile center, having 11,000 cotton looms with more than 1.000,000 spin- .. dles and faotories making woolens, linens and hemp. These are the chief {tems as I gather them here In Vienna. It seems to me that they prove what I sald at the start of this letter, and that is: Austria is not & dead one. (Copyright, 1923, Carpenter's World Travels.) Some Gifted Eaters. AH Americarn, .visiting Manchester, England, not long ago, was brought in contact with & ‘waliter who has served at every oyster feast there since 1302 and who complained of the degeneracy of the cotemporary appetite.- *“The capacity of (h. guests is not what it ysed to be,” said this walter. “I bave often served fourteen dosen oysters to one man, and many guests would eat five or six dozen at the feast. Today few persons eat more than two and a haif dozen.” Now this disconsolate walter might brighten up If he had the opportunity of serving s customer like the man whom Brillat-Savarin celebrates In his “Phayiologie du Gout. It Is therein stated that when Brillat-Savarin Ifved at Versallles he ffequently met a M. Laperte, who was very fond of oysters, but who complained that he could never get his fill of them. The famous gui tronomist determined to satisty this man once for all and invited him to dinner. He kept pace with Laperte ""up to the third dosen and then al- VER. THE RE FIRST lowed him to proceed alon He swallowed oysters steadily for more {than an hour, and Brillat-Savarin had to stop him after the thirty-sec- ond dozen, just as he had remarked thn he was beginning to enjoy. his The two men then dined and LI rte acquitted himself with the .vls;r lfld lbnallle of a man who been lo: ng. Flower Colors. SOHE curfous observations made in Manchester, England, indicate that light and temperature may have a determining influence on the colors of flowers in different months. The observer observed a tro- paeclum, or nasturtium plant, which showed three types of flowers—yellow, : yellow with red markings and claret. « colored. Sometimes one type predom-.- inated and sometimes another. Ia- the offspring of this plant ne me~ ticed that the parti-colored and red - flowers occurred only during fine, hot. weather, in the second week of Au< gust, whereas during the ocold, wet periods of July, September and Oc-. tober all the flowers were yellow. By self-sterilizing the flowers of different colors he found that in th light are the govern: & influences.