| Show IN WILD FRENZY k 1 R E N Z Y TO 80 GET SHOES italy need heed of footwear most crying demand of postwar days SEIZED regardless OF SIZE sies of commandeered profiteer footwear cause excitement in many cities stores ransacked by mob for food florence el orence italy it if dante lived in florence today lie might be inspired I 1 to write another inferno with shoes as the prime cause ot of evil N xo hing aing has been so evident during thee postwar days as the need of It lans for footwear tie recent public demonstrations backed by the camera del lavoro or chambers of labor where stocks of goods of all descriptions in the hands of profiteers in many cities were commandeered mande ered and ordered sold at reduced prices precipitated unusual somer saul sauls bauhs s of trade but the wildest scrambles were in the shoe stores here feie the demand for shoes produced scenes of t tle wildest disorder frenzy over footwear in rome milan forli bologna and naples the search for slices shoes continued many days the struggles in each C ity city were so great that few law abiding r persons gersoni tried 0 to o secure shoes shoe there appeared to t be no attempt at a a anyone t lious shoes cje vere handed out in boxes and the buyers took them seemingly not caring whether they fitted or not just so they were on oil the lie basis of a 50 per cent reduction 1 in n price it was a cou common nor light to see a man loaded up with for his entire famay to obtain admission to a shoe store was fully as difficult as buying a ticket for a world series baseball game for hours the shoe hunters would wait in long lines before they were finally admitted into the storeroom elioe merchants fixed two hours in the morn morning I 1 ng and two in the afternoon for the opening of their stores but the long line was waiting for shoes several hours before the scheduled time arrived impatience on oil the part of the crowds caused in most cries cases the summary seizure of goods and the resort to ransacking food stores were treated first 1 in tills this way but the lawlessness qs soon spread to clothing and shops hops stores ransacked would be depleted of every commodity eatable wearable or portable there were examples in spezia of carrying out all the commodities loading them in a motor truck and taking them sume some four or five miles outside the city for distribution whole hogs leads heads of wine were rolled out of the city I 1 in n this way and distributed it seemed as if the mob had designated for them the stores to b be e looted there was apparently the most system systematic a tic pi pillaging I 1 of those accused of war profiteering merchants Aler chants known to have violated governmental regulations by selling prohibited prohibits d articles during the war were treated in tile the same way soldiers sent to restore order in some cases were charged with accepting gifts from the rioters and at other times filling their pockets with eatables including biscuits fruit nuts and chocolate the new situation created by the arbitrary commandeer ings and fixing of prices Is now beginning it to 0 react storekeepers are refusing to run their businesses on the new basis while there Is evidently a general shortage throughout the various cities affected by the new economic changes many well to do families who have always been have found themselves suddenly unable to buy food some merchants have closed their shops and gone to summer resorts in the hope that when su summer amer ends the eruption will have subsided and there will be a return to normal conditions dit ions |
