The Cost of the 



A chain of double 

 eagles extending for- 

 ty-four thousand 

 miles is the cost of 

 the war to date 



\\/ walk- 



1 n g ^• 



along the f| 



Ringstrasse in ^ 



\'ienna one 

 day a f e w 

 years ago, I 

 found myself 

 in the neighborhood of 

 the Ho f burg, the Impe- 

 rial and Royal palace. It 

 was one of the days 

 when visitors were ad- 

 mitted to the "Treasury 

 of the Imperial House 

 of Austria," so I turned through the gate 

 and having witnessed the impressive cer- 

 emony of the changing of the guard, paid 

 my krone and marched in. Purchasing 

 an official catalogue of the treasures, I 

 looked at the display of royal insignia, 

 crowns and swords, the sacred relics 

 such as a nail from the true cross and a 

 tooth reputed once to have rested in the 

 jaw of John the Baptist, and the dia- 

 monds, emeralds, pearls and rubies in- 

 cluded in the list. Of all that I saw, I 

 was most impressed with a sentence in 

 the introduction to the aforementioned 

 catalogue. It read that in 1876 it had 



^•"•^p^ft 



It costs over twelve thousand dollars to 

 kill a man in this war 



Great War 



$12,100.68— 

 The Cost of 

 Killing a Man 

 in War 



By Herbert 

 Francis 



been "decreed 

 that in the fu- 

 ture the Haps- 

 burg - Lorraine 

 private treasure 

 should only in- 

 clude those ob- 

 jects which were 

 held lo be essential as demonstrating the 

 power and wealth of the reigning family." 

 This might do very well for the con- 

 sumption of the ignorant peasant of the 

 Austro-Hungarian empire, but I imag- 

 ined what would be said of the taste of 

 a democratic American family which 

 should thus blatantly announce in open- 

 ing its gallery of art objects and relics 

 to the public that the collection had been 

 made with the purpose of "demonstrat- 

 ing the power and wealth of the family.'' 

 Later I visited the royal palace in Ber- 

 lin. My chief recollections are of the 

 plaster imitations of curtains with which 

 a number of apartments were bedecked, 

 the great felt slippers with which every 

 visitor was equipped in order to protect 

 the polished wood floors, and the theat- 

 rical manner in which the Kaiser's gold 

 plate was displayed in the throne room. 

 The golden vessels reposed on a metal 

 framework so designed as to give oppor- 

 tunity for the close examination of each 

 piece. The whole was enclosed in a glass 

 cabinet with mirrors at the back. As the 

 ^■isitors entered the room an attendant 

 would open a small door in the wainscot- 

 ing and throw an electric switch, light- 

 ing up the interior of the glass case with 

 invisible globes. By means of these foot- 

 lights it was possible to see clearly both 

 the front and the back of the golden dish- 

 es. ^^'ith truly Teutonic efficiency, the at- 



898 



