Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 88.djvu/427

 Popular Science Monthly

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��tendant cut off the current as soon as the visitors turned to leave the apart- ment.

I have described these two exhibitions by which the Teutonic rulers chose to demonstrate their wealth and power by way of show- ing how standards change. For more than a year now a method of demonstrating wealth and power has been exhibited in continental Eu- rope which makes the old seem disgustingly cheap and picayune. All the jew- els and gold plate in the palaces of Vienna and Ber- lin taken together would not foot the war bill for one day.

While exact figures showing the cost of the war will not be compiled until after it has come to a close, yet estimates have been made which show what a great destroyer of wealth it is. The best esti- mate is that up to January 1, not less than forty billions of dollars had been expend- ed in direct prosecution of warfare. This incomprehensible • sum aver-

ages ^77,- 200,772 a day

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��0,000,0 0,000


 * \^4l^/f O^NS OF GOLD

��Three men would be required to carry the gold used to run the war for one minute

since war began and does not take into consideration the billions of dollars' worth of property wiped out in the coun- tries invaded and through the deaths of millions of workers. For each minute of the day, the nations at war are obliged to pay out $53,611.64. Imagining this to be in gold and put into bags having a capacity of fifty pounds each, it would require the services of probably three soldiers to carry each minute's monetary needs. And according to the best ob- tainable statistics, the burden would be fatal to two of the number, for at the rate of fifty pounds to the man, it would require an army of 2,218,500 men to transport the forty billions in gold. This number is about two-thirds the to- tal estimated number of men killed within the period covered by the forty billions. Using the best available data at the time of writing, it is costing $12,100.68 gold to kill

���It would require fifteen trains of severity cars each and one of fifty-seven cars to carry the gold spent in carrying on the war up to January 1, 1916

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