Salt Lake Tribune | 1918-01-06 | Page 17 | Yukon's Golden Days Echoed in Petrograd

MI'S GOLDEN DAYS ECHOED ' INPETROGRAD Money Is Flowing at Russia's Rus-sia's Capital as Never Before Be-fore in History. By International News Service. PAK.LS, Jan. 5. Money is 1 owing at Petrograd as never before hi the history his-tory of Russia, exceeding even the' wildest wild-est days of the Yukon. The golden days of El Dorado and '49 pale into insignificance in comparison "with the surface opulence that now prevails in the capital of Muscovj-. Petrograd has gone absolutely "rnonev cray. '' "Rubles, rubles, rubles, ' ' is the hectic c ry and the keynote of all life at Petrograd. The station porter demands a tip that, in ordinary times, "would constitute a month. 's salary. The humblest "Isve-stchik,? "Isve-stchik,? (cab driver) and the station porter display bankrolls that would have supported them for life in prerevolu-tionary prerevolu-tionary days, while the peasant who was formerly content to labor seven days a week for a meager existence, now appears ap-pears on the Nevsky Prospect with sufficient suf-ficient paper coin of the realm to pay an army division for a month. But, despite the quantity of currency changing hands, the middle and poorer classes have to struggle along on the merest existence. The money is plentiful, plenti-ful, but the wares are scarce. Shoes have disappeared from the market. Long queues will form in front of the confectionary shop that announces candies for sale at ten dollars tho pound. Another manifestation, vividly recalling recall-ing the Yukon gold rushes, of the money fever of the capital, is the numerous nu-merous gambling houses that have lately late-ly opened their doors. The sky is the limit. Baccarat has become the game of the day and may be played in any cafe or restaurant, to say nothing of the "private1' establishments. The betting begins at 500U rubles and runs up to the millions. In the eight months since the revolution the sale of playing cards, which constitute a government monopoly, has increased a hundredfold. . The man who has added a Dumber of thousands of paper rubles to his fortune for-tune seldom hesitates in exchanging them, at a very goodly rate, for diamonds, dia-monds, bracelet?, pearls and other baubles that have a certain value as a commodity. But back of all this fren.y of unrestricted unre-stricted spending and coinage inflation is a very serious note. One of the most celebrated Russian economists. M. Bara-novsky, Bara-novsky, has just sounded a warning to his mad countrymen. The ruble? has already sunk in the interior of Russia to a value of ten koperks, or one-tenth of if1 ordinary worth, and the huee , quantities of paper moncv beiny coined, the figures no v.- reach fifteen billions, : are totally unsecured by any gold de- posit. I