AMBASSADOR GERARD AND HIS PARTY IN SEDAN.

WITH GERMAN OFFICERS AND MEMBERS OF THE FRENCH FOOD COMMISSION BEFORE THE COTTAGE AT BAZEILLES, WHERE NAPOLEON III AND BISMARCK MET AFTER THE BATTLE OF SEDAN.

The feeding of the French population, which is carried on by the American Relief Commission, was a very interesting thing to see and, in company with one of the members of the French committee, we saw the workings of this system of American Relief. We first visited a storehouse in Charleville, the headquarters for the relief district of which Charleville may be called the capital.

For relief purposes Northern France is divided into six districts. From the central distribution point in each district, food is sent to the commune within the district, the commune being the ultimate unit of distribution and each commune containing on the average about five hundred souls. We then motored to one of the communes where the distribution of food for the week was to take place that afternoon. Here in a factory, closed since the war, the people of the commune were lined up with their baskets waiting for their share of the rations. On entering a large room of the factory, each stopped first at a desk and there either paid in cash for the week's allowance of rations or signed an agreement to pay at some future date. The individuals who had no prospect of being able to pay received the rations for nothing. About one-third were in each class. The money used was not always French, or real money, but was, as a rule, the paper money issued in that part of Northern France by each town and redeemable after the war.

Signs were hung up showing the quantity that each person was entitled to receive for the next fifteen days and the sale price per kilo to each inhabitant. For instance, in this particular period for the first fifteen days of the month of May, 1916, each inhabitant could, in this district, receive the following allowances at the following rates:

ARTICLEAMOUNT PER HEADPRICE
Flour4K. 500 The Kilogram0 fr. 48
RiceK. 5000 fr. 55
BeansK. 5000 fr. 90
BaconK. 5002 fr. 80
LardK. 2502 fr. 30
Green CoffeeK. 2501 fr. 70
Crystallized SugarK. 1500 fr. 90
SaltK. 2000 fr. 10
Soap (hard)K. 2501 fr. 00

In addition to these articles each inhabitant of the commune which we visited, also received on the day of our visit a small quantity of carrot seed to plant in the small plot of ground which each was permitted to retain out of his own land by the German authorities.

The unfortunate people who received this allowance looked very poor and very hungry and very miserable. Many of them spoke to me, not only here but also in Charleville, and expressed their great gratitude to the American people for what was being done for them. Those in Charleville said that they had heard that I was in their town because of trouble pending between America and Germany. They said they hoped that there would be no war between the two countries because if war came they did not know what would become of them and that, in the confusion of war, they would surely be left to starve.

In Charleville notices were posted directing the inhabitants not to go out on the streets after, I think, eight o'clock in the evening, and also notices informing the population that they would be allowed a small quantity of their own land for the purpose of growing potatoes.

After visiting the factory building where the distribution of rations was taking place, we motored to Sedan, stopping on the way at the hamlet of Bazeilles, and visiting the cottage where Bismarck and Emperor Napoleon the Third had their historic interview after the battle of Sedan.