In order to buy a pair of those shoes a man or a woman went there and got a place in line. Each stood in line until his or her turn came to be admitted to the shop, a long and weary business. When he gained admission to the shop and the clerk got around to waiting on him he received--a pair of shoes? Not a bit of it. He got a ticket with a number on it. The ticket entitled the customer to come back at some future date, stand in line and claim a pair of shoes which were probably at the time being made--provided he could afford to pay a minimum of ten dollars for them. When I was in Poland with the women soldiers, the Botchkareva Battalion of Death, the regiment was delayed in its further progress toward the fighting line by a dearth of boots in which to march. About half the women soldiers received boots along with their other equipment before they left Petrograd, but the other half wore, with their khaki uniform, the women’s shoes, often worn and tattered, in which they had enlisted. One day there was great rejoicing in the barrack. The boots had come, and the rest of the afternoon was spent in sorting out from the pile a pair to fit each girl. I was interested in those boots, for they were mute but eloquent witnesses of the poverty of life in Russia. Not a pair was new. They were all second-hand, remade and mended boots, and I strongly suspect that most of them had been taken off the feet of dead soldiers. They had, in many cases, new feet or new soles, but the majority of them were merely mended and patched. Coarse, stiff, malodorous and badly put together as these were, the girls were only too glad to get them. The Adjutant, Skridlova, and one or two of the well-to-do soldiers had their boots made to order, and they paid ninety dollars a pair for them. Seventy-five dollars for a pair of women’s boots is not an unheard-of price.