experience definite relief in the knowledge that now at any
moment I could have my meal. Feeling in this way less
hungry, I used then to postpone it hour by hour, and actually
dined about five or six o'clock. Thinking that I might indeed
have been specially favoured I made investigations, and
found that the dinners supplied at the public feeding
houses (the equivalent of our national kitchens) were of
precisely the same size and character, any difference
between the meals depending not on the food but on the
cook.


A kind of rough and ready co-operative system also
obtained. One day there was a notice on the stairs that those
who wanted could get one pot of jam apiece by applying to
the provisioning committee of the hotel. I got a pot of jam
in this way, and on a later occasion a small quantity of
Ukrainian sausage.


Besides the food obtainable on cards it was possible to buy,
at ruinous prices, food from speculators, and an idea of the
difference in the prices may be obtained from the following
examples: Bread is one rouble 20 kopecks per pound by
card and 15 to 20 roubles per pound from the speculators.
Sugar is 12 roubles per pound by card, and never less than
50 roubles per pound in the open market. It is obvious that
abolition of the card system would mean that the rich would
have enough and the poor nothing. Various methods have
been tried in the effort to get rid of speculators whose