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 towns, where bread is consequently cheaper by about 30 per cent.

"The scarcity of fuel in Lodz is equally the fault of the 'Import Company.' The town requires about 150 railway trucks of coal a day, and it has to import it by way of Germany instead of getting it straight from Polish coalfields. This city of half a million inhabitants has no stores of fuel, and if the railway communication is interrupted it may be left destitute of fuel altogether, especially as the forests round Lodz have been cut down during the war."

That is a faithful picture of Lodz as it was three months ago. The nightmare of starvation had haunted the city the whole summer through, and now it was accompanied by a more frightful prospect still. Winter was at hand—the merciless winter of North-Eastern Europe—and they were to be abandoned without fuel to the intolerable cold. Here is the plight that stared them in the face, as it is outlined in the "Lodzianin," the Social Democratic newspaper in the town:—

"There are about 60,000 householders in Lodz. Every one of them is entitled to a coal card, and as only 150 of these are issued a day (which makes 4,500 a month), the rest are likely to remain without fuel for the winter. The cold favours the development of tuberculosis. Last year we had 40 per cent, mortality from tuberculosis, although conditions then were much better than can be hoped for this winter.

"The manufacturers have been told to give support only to those workmen who have been