ful enough to be of great help.

In Berlin the meat shortage became so acute in April, 1916, that
for five days in the week preceding Easter most butchers' shops did
not open their doors. This made it imperative that the city should
extend the ticket rationing system to meat. The police issued
cards to the residents of their districts, permitting them to
purchase one-half pound of meat per week from a butcher to whom
they were arbitrarily assigned in order to facilitate distribution.
The butchers buy through the municipal authorities, who contract
for the entire supply of the city. The tickets are in strips, each
of which represents a week, and each strip is subdivided into five
sections for the convenience of diners in restaurants.

Since the supply in each butcher's shop was seldom sufficient to
let everybody be served in one day, the custom of posting in the
windows or advertising in the local papers "Thursday, Nos. 1-500,"
and later, "Saturday, Nos. 501-1000," was introduced. A few
butchers went still further and announced at what hours certain
numbers could be served, thus doing away with the long queues.

Most of the competent authorities with whom I discussed the matter
agreed that the great flaw in the meat regulations was that, unlike
those of bread, they were only local and thus there were great
differences and correspondinng discontent all over Germany.

One factor which contributed to Germany's shortage of meat was the
indiscriminate killing of the livestock, especially pigs, when the
price of fodder first rose in the last months of 1914. Most of
this excess killing was done by the small owners. Our plates were
heaped unnecessarily. Some of the dressing was done so hurriedly
and carelessly that there were numerous cases of pork becoming so
full of worms that it had to be destroyed.

The great agrarian Junkers were not forced by lack of fodder to
kill; consequently they own a still larger proportion of the
live-stock than they did at the beginning of the war.

On October 1st, 1916, the regulation of meat was taken out of the
hands of the local authorities so far as their power to regulate
the amount for each person was concerned, and this amount was made
practically the same throughout Germany.

First and foremost in the welfare of the people, whatever may be
said by the vegetarians, is the vital question of the meat supply.
Involved in the question of cattle is milk, leather, other
products,