official would come around
and hand each civilian a slip of paper. I asked one of my companions
what it was all about.

[Sidenote: No bread tickets for those who do not work.]

"Bread tickets," he explained. "If they don't turn up for work, they
don't get their bread tickets and have to go hungry."

The same rule applied to the women who worked around the head of the
mine, pushing carts and loading the coal. If they came to work, they
received their bread tickets; if they failed to turn up, the little
mouths at home would go unfed for a day.

[Sidenote: German women at the mines.]

I often used to stop for a moment or so on my way to or from the pit
head and watch these poor women at work. Some of them went barefoot, but
the most of them wore wooden shoes. They appeared to be pretty much of
one class, uneducated, dull, and just about as ruggedly built as their
men. They seemed quite capable of handling the heavy work given them.
There were exceptions, however. Here and there among the gray-clad
groups I could pick out women of a slenderer mold. These were women of
refinement and good education who had been compelled to turn to any
class of work to feed their children. Their husbands and sons were at
the front or already killed.

The food restrictions caused bitterness among all the mine workers.
There were angry discussions whenever a group of them got together. For
several days this became very marked.

"There's going to be trouble here," my friend, the English Tommy, told
me. "These people say their families are starving. They will strike one
of these days."

The very next day, as we marched up to work in the dull gray of the
early morning, we found noisy crowds of men and women around the
buildings at the mine. A ring of sentries had been placed all around.

[Sidenote: Bread strike of the citizen miners.]

"Strike's on! There's a bread strike all through the mining country!"
was the whispered news that ran down the line of prisoners. We were
delighted, because it meant that we would have a holiday. The
authorities did not dare let us go into the mines with the civilians
out; they were afraid we might wreck it. So we were marched back to camp
and stayed there until the strike was over.

[Sidenote: The strikers win and new rules are formulated.]

The strike ended finally and the people came back to work, jubilant. The
authorities had given in for two reasons, as far as we could judge. The
first was the