n 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
francs a ton, could not be purchased in 1919 for less than 360 francs.

The restaurants and hotels waged a veritable war of plunder on their
guests, most of whom, besides the scandalous prices, which bore no
reasonable relation to the cost of production, had to pay the government
luxury tax of 10 per cent, over and above. A well-known press
correspondent, who entertained seven friends to a simple dinner in a
modest restaurant, was charged 500 francs, 90 francs being set down for
one chicken, and 28 for three cocktails. The _maitre d'hotel_, in
response to the pressman's expostulations, assured him that these
charges left the proprietor hardly any profit. As it chanced, however,
the journalist had just been professionally investigating the cost of
living, and had the data at his finger-ends. As he displayed his
intimate knowledge to his host, and obviously knew where to look for
redress, he had the satisfaction of obtaining a r