loaded with chilled meat arrived in Paris from Havre in the month of
June. When they were examined at the cold-storage station it was
discovered that, the doors having been negligently left open, the
contents of the cases had to be destroyed.[20] From Belgium 108,000
kilos of potatoes were received and allowed to lie so long at one of the
stations that they went bad and had to be thrown away. When these and
kindred facts were published, the authorities, who had long been silent,
became apologetic, but remained throughout inactive. In other countries
the conditions, if less accentuated, were similar.

One of the dodges to which unscrupulous dealers resorted with impunity
and profit was particularly ingenious. At the central markets, whenever
any food is condemned, the public-health authorities seize it and pay
the owner full value at the current market rates. The marketmen often
turned this equitable arrangement to account by keeping back large
quantities of excellent vegetables, for which the population was
yearning, and when they rotted and had to be carted away, received their
money value from the Public Health Department, thus attaining their
object, which was to lessen the supply and raise the prices on what they
kept for sale.[21] The consequence was that Paris suffered from a
continual dearth of vegetables and fruits. Statistics published by the
United States government showed the maximum increase in the cost of
living in four countries as follows: France, 235 per cent.; Britain, 135
per cent.; Canada, 115 per cent.; and the United States, 107 per
cent.[22] But since these data were published prices continued to rise
until, at the beginning of July, they had attained the same level as
those of Russia on the eve of the revolution there. In Paris, Lyons,
Marseilles, the prices of various kinds of fish, shell-fish, jams,
apples, had gone up 500 per cent., cabbage over 900 per cent., and
celeriac 2,000 per cent. Anthracite coal, which in the year 1914 cost 56