Fabulous prices for meat.
Butchers and bakers and provision dealers had to shut their shops, and the town became almost wholly dependent on supplies brought in by the American Relief Commission. Fresh meat was soon unobtainable, except by those few people who could afford to pay fabulous prices for joints smuggled across the frontier. Months ago meat cost 32 francs a kilogram (about 13 shillings a pound) and an egg cost 1 franc 25 (a shilling). Obviously such things were beyond the reach of the bulk of the people, and had it not been for the efforts of the Relief Commission we should all have starved.
Foodstuffs supplied by the Relief Commission.
The commission opened a food depot, a local committee issued tickets for the various articles, and rich and poor alike had to wait their turn at the depot to procure the allotted rations. The chief foodstuffs supplied were: Rice, flaked maize, bacon, lard, coffee, bread, condensed milk (occasionally), haricot beans, lentils, and a very small allowance of sugar. Potatoes could not be bought at any price.
The Germans intercept mine food.
Unfortunately, though I regret that I should have to record it, there is evidence that by some means or other the German Army contrived to intercept for itself a part of the food sent by the American Commission. One who had good reason to know told me that more than once trainloads which, according to a notification sent to him, had left Brussels for Roubaix failed to arrive. I know also that analysis of the bread showed that in some cases German rye flour, including 30 per cent of sawdust, had been substituted for the white American flour, producing an indigestible putty-like substance which brought illness and death to many. Indeed, the mortality from this cause was so heavy at one period that all the grave diggers in the town could not keep pace with it.
Germans eager to buy food.
One could easily understand how great must have been the temptation to the Germans to tap for themselves the food which friends abroad had sent for their victims. It is a significant fact that soldiers in Roubaix were eager to buy rice from those who had obtained it at the depot at four francs (3s 4d) the pound in order, as they said, "to send it home." I shall describe later how utterly different were the conditions in Belgium as I saw them.
Meagre as were the food supplies for the civilians in Roubaix, those issued to the German soldiers toward the end of my stay were little better.
At first the householders, on whom the soldiers were billeted, were required to feed them and to recover the cost from the municipal authorities.