There is an institution in Vienna known as the Dorotheum. It is the Government pawnshop and ===has for its sign a falling hammer against a sinking sun. More than two hundred years ago it was founded by the good Emperor Joseph to protect his people against the rapacity of private brokers. Formerly the rule was that if articles were not reclaimed within the space of ten months, they would be passed under the hammer. Today the respite for redemption has been cut down to three months; the Government cannot take the risk of a declining currency over a longer period.

This afternoon I visited the Dorotheum. It is a vast building, constructed on the grand scale like a palace. Up and down its marble stairway throng the more respectable part of the tragedy of Vienna; pressing hard upon its heels come the vulture purchasers, for the most part foreigners, intent on making bargains out of Austria's want. The Dorotheum is a museum of domestic sacrifices. Here is the complete story of a country gone bankrupt. There is no exchange in the world that is so crowded. Never in its history did it do so thriving a trade. Early in the morning the crowd begins to gather, each individual carrying a shamefully concealed bundle; it does not disperse till the gates are closed at night. The Dorotheum is patronised by all classes, from the bank-clerk, raising a few crowns on an alarm clock, to the archduchess, pledging her jewels. It is one of the last ports of call of the proudly destitute.

Before I made my tour of inspection I was ushered into the presence of the supervisor—a sad, thin man in a flapping black coat who had the nervous cough of an undertaker. He explained that the season being Christmas he was very busy. Trade was brisk; everyone in Vienna had something to sell. This may strike you as quaint, but in Vienna nowadays Christmas is celebrated by pawning and not by purchasing. Because of this the supervisor asked to be excused from conducting me personally over his mausoleum. He entrusted me to a gray, unshaven man who had the appearance of a broken Count. He may have been a Count. An Admiral, who was the hope of the Adriatic navy, is banging at a typewriter today.

This morning I shook the hand of a General, earning ten dollars a month, who once made the Allies tremble by his prowess against the Russians. You can never be quite sure of your companion in this fallen city of tragic transformations.

The first room we entered was jammed to the ceiling with everything from the cheapest electric fittings to the loot of palaces. I noticed a complete set of Empire drawing-room furniture marked at the absurd price of a thousand crowns—rather less than a dollar and a half. There were rare rugs on the walls—the kind one would purchase at Sloane's for anything above three thousand dollars; they were offered at from three to sixty dollars. The sixty dollar one was a magnificent specimen. In another room there was an art gallery, guarded by an ex-engineer of European reputation, who now survives chiefly on tips. The pictures which he guarded were all for sale and many of them the work of famous modern painters. The cheapest I saw was a signed Russian landscape; it would have cost me thirty cents. The dearest, frame and all, could have been mine for six dollars. Art is not much in demand in Vienna.

But the more pathetic sight was not the luxuries of the rich, but the necessities of the respectable middle-class, which had been left unredeemed for three months and were now to be auctioned off. The price on the tags represented one-third their value, which had been advanced to their owners, plus a margin of interest on the Government's outlay. Here were dresses, millinery, fur coats, gramophones, silver wedding-presents, libraries and even cradles. There was nothing you can think of that goes to make a home that some unfortunate had not pledged and lost.

The Count touched my arm. Wouldn't I like to see how it was done? How what was done? Why, the pledging.

I followed him out of the crowded room, where the foreigners were selecting the bargains for which they intended to bid next day. We went down a narrow, draughty stairway till we found ourselves in a kind of railway station. All along one side was a tier of windows, with iron railings leading up to them, and between the railings queues of tired people. They all carried parcels, as if they were going on a journey, but when they reached the windows they parted with their bundles—pushed them through the slit, waited and went away stuffing wads of paper money in their pockets.

This was the department where the jewelry was pawned. I was escorted through a door into the room which lay behind the windows. Here in long rows the valuers sat with scales before them, and magnifying glasses screwed into their right eyes. As a package was pushed through the slit across the counter they took it, undid it and examined its contents. They tested the stones. They weighed the metal. Then they scribbled on a slip of paper the sum of money the Government was prepared to advance. The pledger never demurred at the amount offered. He presented the slip at a neighboring window and the money was counted out.

Watching from the inside room, where the valuing was in process, I could hardly see the pledgers' faces. It was their hands thrust with a shameful furtiveness through the windows that told their story. All kinds of hands! I remember one pair. They belonged to a man of thirty—they were the supple hands of an artist. Behind the window I could make out his firm, clean-shaven face. Beside him a young woman was standing—probably his wife. My attention was attracted to her because, when he pushed the jewelry across the counter, she made a regretful gesture, as if she would draw it back. The valuer commenced coldly to examine it. The parcel contained a woman's bracelet, a man's cuff-links, a gold watch-chain and a wedding ring. It was the wedding ring that gave me the meaning of her gesture. The valuer scribbled his offer. It was for 2,400 crowns—about three dollars fifty. The offer was accepted and the next comer's pair of hands were thrust tremblingly into sight.

Last of all I was taken to the auction-rooms, where the sales were in progress. The Count warned me that at this time in the afternoon the auctions were not interesting. It was too late. The expensive lots were sold earlier. But despite his pessimisms, I was interested.

There was a long room, dimly lighted. Running up and down it in an oval, was a pathway of tables. It formed a barrier like the enclosure of a circus. Seated on the outside of it were the bidders, with faces avid as gamblers'. At a high desk the auctioneer sat enthroned—he gets seventy dollars a year for his trouble. In the space on the inside, which the table surrounded, the goods being auctioned were piled. And what do you think they were? Children's toys. Not new toys, but old favorites—dolls and rocking-horses and tin soldiers, the pillage of the nurseries of Vienna. They were the gifts which Santa Claus had left at little bedsides in years when the world was kinder. Like the wedding ring, they had to go. Bread was required.