Tickets @ Any Price

Year ago the German State Railways slightly raised passenger fares, issued sanguine predictions that revenue for 1929 would show an increase of 50,000,000 marks ($11,900,000).

Thrifty Germans weighed miles against marks, slow and cheap local trains against the several grades of German expresses, each with its slightly extra fare. Result reported last week: passenger train revenue did not bounce with the higher fares but slumped 16,000,000 marks ($3,800,000).

Freight rates were also increased a year ago, and grudging but helpless shippers paid an extra 200,000,000 marks ($47,600,000).

With a nice flair for the appropriate statistic, the German Railway Company cheerfully went on to reveal last week that even if the public had fooled them it had still bought one billion tickets during the year. "Seventeen printing shops print most of the tickets," continued the chatty announcement, "but we have installed 1,650 ticket-printing apparatuses in our most important ticket offices which can be instantly adjusted to print any ticket required, together with any price."

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