When rationing was in full force. All kinds of rules and regulations were instituted to stop the wastage of food. To throw rice at a wedding became a summary offence, and the sale of luxury chocolates was stopped.
No sweetmeats over 2d. per ounce or chocolates over 3d. per ounce were permitted. The use of starch in laundry work was restricted. Horses and cows, and even the London pigeons, were rationed. No corn was allowed for cobs, hunters, carriage horses, hacks, most of which had by then been commandeered for Army use.
A man was fined £50 for collecting bread crusts for pig food, and in defence said that otherwise they would have been wasted, as navvies would not eat crusts.
The amount of bread or cake which might be sold at tea shops for afternoon teas was reduced to two ounces. It became an offence to adopt and feed stray dogs.
Local Food Controllers were appointed. Butchers were ordered to display price lists, and bakers were forbidden to bake any but Government regulation bread. Grocers would not sell to people who were not registered with them for sugar, and, it was said, insisted upon other purchases being made in addition to sugar. Milk was also controlled.
The time came when so great were the discomfort and ill-feeling caused by the food queue and the suspicion that the rich were obtaining more than their fair share of eatables that the demand for compulsory rations became more and more insistent.
In the bitter cold and rain of these depressing winters of the Great War, women and children waited outside the shabby shops common to the poor districts of all towns.
They carried baskets, string bags, bags made of American cloth, and babies, and stood shifting their burdens from one arm to another to ease their aching. Women used to go from shop to shop trying to find one at which they could buy meat or margarine, tea, and possibly a little extra sugar.
The time came when meat cards and ration cards of all kinds were in force. The public were also required to register for bacon. The rations served to the troops to Britain were reduced and it became legal to inflict a fine up to £400 for hoarding food.
The price of fish in those days was a nightmare to housewives. Sole was up to 4s. per pound, and turbot 3s. An old account book of these days shows that in the autumn of 1917 milk cost 9d. per quart, butter as. 6d. per pound, tea as. 6d. per pound, a cauliflower 1s., a fowl 12s as. 6d., bananas 5d each, a tin of peaches 4s. 6d., and a flat sponge sandwich cake the size of a teaplate 2s. 3d