Late in the morning I left the Stettiner Bahnhof in the north and walked eastward through the Invalidenstrasse.  There was practically no meat in the butchers’ shops, just the customary lines of empty hooks.  A long queue farther on attracted my attention and I crossed the street to see what the people were waiting for.  A glance at the dark red carcases in the shop told me that this was horse-meat day for that district.

The number of vacant shops of all descriptions was increasing.  The small shoemaker and tailor were closing up.  The centralisation of food distribution is greater here than in the better-class districts, with the result that many small shopkeepers have been driven out of business.  In parts of Lothringerstrasse a quarter of the shops were vacant, in other parts one-half.  The bakers’ shops are nearly empty except at morning and evening.  In fact, after my long sojourn in blockaded Germany I still find myself after two months in England staring in amazement at the well-stocked shop windows of every description.

Shortly before noon I reached the Zentral Viehund-Schlachthof (the slaughter-houses).  Through a great gateway poured women and children, each carrying some sort of a tin or dish full of stew.  Some of the children were scarcely beyond the age of babyhood, and their faces showed unmistakable traces of toil.  The poor little things drudged hard enough in peace time, and in war they are merely part of the big machine.

The diminishing supply of cattle and pigs for killing has afforded an opportunity to convert a section of the slaughter-houses into one of the great People’s Kitchens.  Few eat there, however.  Just before noon and at noon the people come in thousands for the stew, which costs forty pfennigs (about 5 pence) a quart, and a quart is supposed to be enough for a meal and a half.

I have been in the great Schlachthof kitchen, where I have eaten the stew, and I have nothing but praise for the work being done.  This kitchen, like the others I have visited, is the last word in neatness.  The labour-saving devices, such as electric potato-parers, are of the most modern type.  In fact, the war is increasing the demand for labour-saving machinery in Germany to at least as great an extent as high wages have caused such a demand in America.  Among the women who prepare the food and wait upon the people there is a noticeable spirit of co-operation and a pride in the part they are playing to help the Fatherland durchhalten (hold out).  Should any of the stew remain unsold it is taken by a well-known restaurant in the Potsdamer Platz, which has a contract with the municipal authorities.  Little was wasted in Germany before the war; nothing, absolutely nothing, is wasted to-day.

As at the central slaughter-house, so in other districts the poor are served in thousands with standard stew.  The immense Alexander Market has been cleared of its booths and tables and serves more than 30,000 people.  One director of this work told me that the Berlin authorities would supply nearly 400,000 people before the end of the winter.