It is not only clothes that are getting scarce in Germany, but every
kind of manufactured articles as well. Many articles of furniture
cannot be bought at all now, even second-hand, and the prices for
things still in stock are enormous. A German girl I know was going to
be married, and she wanted twin brass beds. She tried all over Dresden
but could not get two single brass beds alike. She could not even order
them, because she was told by the merchants that they were not being
made any more. A perfectly plain brass bed, single size, was 390 marks.
All the old stock of manufactured articles, furniture, cooking
utensils, goods by the yard, tablecloths, towels and sheets are being
bought up by the people, because they say that the new stock which will
be manufactured after the war will be of an inferior quality, and it
will be years before they can get the good grade of goods again.
Just to illustrate the scarcity of manufactured articles I will tell
the story about my typewriter. When I first went to Germany I rented a
Smith Premier for three months for thirty marks. Every one said that
this was a great bargain. When the three months were over I sent the
typewriter firm a check in payment for three months more. I didn't hear
anything from them for about a month, when one day a young man called
on me and said that he had come for the typewriter, that his firm was
not renting typewriters any more, but that I could buy it if I wished,
for 390 marks. Reckoning a mark as a quarter as the Germans do, that
meant nearly one hundred dollars for a very old rattle-trap typewriter
that any one could buy in America for fifteen dollars.
I told the young man that I would not be threatened into buying his
typewriter, and that if he took it away he would have to give me back
my entire thirty marks even though I had had it a month. We argued
for about an hour, and then he went away. The next day I got a letter
saying that I could keep the typewriter the remaining two months, but
that at the end of that time I must either give it up or buy it. At the
end of the two months I sent another check for thirty marks, but the
next day a girl messenger dressed as a boy appeared, handed me back
my check, took my typewriter under her arm and disappeared. I hoped
carrying it would make her good and tired.
I did not want to lay out 400 or 500 marks for a typewriter, and I
had an awful time. It was absolutely impossible to rent a typewriter
anywhere in Berlin, and I went everywhere. I put an advertisement in
the paper and I got only six answers and upon going to all of these
six places, I found that at each place the typewriter was a "Mignon,"
a little toy machine where you had to turn a wheel whenever you struck
a letter.
After spending four days hunting, I finally bought a "Pittsburg
Visible." I paid sixty-five marks for it, and it wasn't like any
typewriter I have seen before--or since. It was very curious to look
at--a long, thin affair with very weak prongs that were always getting
twisted around each other. It must have been twenty-five or thirty
years old. I was always in terror for fear something would happen to
it, and whenever we had a guest I yelled, "Be careful and don't bump
the typewriter," or "Don't lay your hat on the typewriter." When I
first used it, it had the bad habit of getting stuck in the middle of a
line, but after I had had it a year, it worked pretty well and I became
very much attached to my little "Pittsburg Visible."
During the year I had my typewriter, typewriters became scarcer
and dearer than ever, indeed it was impossible to buy any kind of a
second-hand visible typewriter, and the new ones were about 600 marks.
New correspondents coming over had an awful time and most of them had
to borrow typewriters from friends. As most of the typewriters were of
American make, it was hard to get a typewriter repaired, as the parts
came from America. Ribbons and carbon paper were very expensive, and
although typewriter paper doubled its price, it was cheaper than the
paper here in America.
At the time I sold my little Pittsburg Visible in June 1917, I was
living in a German boarding-house in Berlin. I believe in advertising,
so I put an "ad" in the "Lokal-Anzeiger" which read: "For sale--cheap,
visible typewriter, Pension Kostermann, Savigny-Platz 5." I thought
that it was a very nice "ad" and it cost me one mark ninety pfennigs.
I will never forget the day my "ad" came out. Before I was up at
seven A. M. the maid knocked at my door and said that I was wanted
at the telephone. It was some one about the typewriter. That was the
beginning. The phone rang all day long, and all the next day. People
came in droves, and they would not go away even after the typewriter
was sold. They wanted to know what kind it was, and they left cursing
themselves that they had not come earlier.
Before I advertised in the paper I had decided to hold out for my
price, one hundred marks. At 10.30 A. M. I was offered ninety marks,
but I said one hundred was my price. At 11.30 there was a lull in the
callers, but the telephone rang like wild. A little Jew came in and
offered me fifty-three marks for my typewriter. I was standing there
looking very much insulted at the idea of any one daring to offer
me fifty-three marks for my good machine, when suddenly the landlady
appeared at the door of my room. "Fräulein McAuley," she said severely,
glaring at the Jew, "I want this to cease. The maids have done nothing
this morning but answer the phone and go to the door about your
typewriter. Do you understand?"
I felt squelched and begged her pardon, and when she left banging the
door after her, I looked helplessly at the Jew. "Sixty-five marks," he
said sympathetically. "Make it sixty-six," I said, "and you can have
it." "Done," he answered, and I sold my typewriter at the profit of one
mark after having it a year.
I explained to the landlady that I had not put the telephone number in
the paper, and she was pacified. Her daughter admired the American way
in which I had made the sale, and the following day she put an "ad" in
the same paper for a pair of field glasses she had. "All the soldiers
will want them," she said. They prepared for a rush such as I had had
for the typewriter, and not a soul answered the advertisement. Both
mother and daughter blamed me for it. I think they thought that I had
done something more than merely advertise in the paper.