Inside the tables were crowded, sixty-five women were hurrying between them and back and forth to the directors who stood at a long counter in front of the kitchen, serving the thousands of portions, of soup, sausage, and a kind of stew of rice and vegetables.
In the kitchen and meat and vegetable rooms there was the constant clamor of sifting, cutting, stirring, of the opening and shutting of ovens. While the sausages of the day were being hurried from the pans, the soup of the morrow was being mixed in the great caldrons; 250 men were hard at work. Somehow they did not look as tho they had been peeling carrots and stirring soup all their lives—there was an inspiring dash in their movements that prevented it seeming habitual.
The superintendent laughed: “Yes,” he said, “they are chiefly railroad engineers, conductors, various workmen of the Liége Railroad Company! I myself was an attorney for the road, and I am really more interested in this œuvre from the point of view of these men, than because of the general public it helps. Here are 250 men who are giving their best service to their country. In working for others they have escaped the curse of being forced to work for the Germans! The sixty-five women serving the 4,000 were once in the telephone service. They also offered to devote themselves to their fellow-sufferers, and they are so proud, so happy to be able to stand shoulder to shoulder with other women in this black hour.”
I asked if each worker were given his dinner. “Ah! there was a problem!” he said. “The meals which we furnish for from 30 to 75 centimes, cost us an average of 63 centimes.” To supply this to 250 assistants was quite beyond the subsidy allowed the Relief. And yet the workers certainly must be fed. Finally he admitted that he and a group of friends were contributing the money necessary to supply these meals. He added that in the beginning the men were hardly able to give more than two hours’ hard work a day, but that after a few months of proper nourishment their energy was inexhaustible.
On another day I found there were no potatoes, and that the number of meals served had in consequence dropt fully 1,000; 743 at 75 centimes, 820 at 60 centimes, 1,473 at 30 centimes. If there are no potatoes to be had in the city, and they are known to be on the carte of the restaurant, there is not standing-room. Hundreds have to be turned away.
This kind of double œuvre is quite the most interesting of all the varied attempts to meet the staggering problem Belgium has daily to face.