e had as one of their most prominent
features booths where you could sample substitutes for coffee,
yeast, eggs, butter, olive oil, and the like. Undoubtedly many of
these substitutes are destined to take their place in the future
alongside some of the products for which they are rendering
vicarious service. In fact, in a "Proclamation touching the
Protection of Inventions, Designs, and Trade Marks in the
Exhibition of Substitute-Materials in Berlin-Charlottenburg, 1916,"
it is provided that the substitutes to be exhibited shall enjoy the
protection of the Law. Even before the war, substitutes like
Kathreiner's malt coffee were household words, whilst the roasting
of acorns for admixture with coffee was not only a usual practice
on the part of some families in the lower middle class, but was so
generally recognised among the humbler folk that the children of
poor families were given special printed permissions by the police
to gather acorns for the purpose on the sacred grass of the public
parks. To deal with meat which in other countries would be
regarded as unfit for human consumption there have long been
special appliances in regular use in peace time. The so-called
_Freibank_ was a State or municipal butcher's shop attached to the
extensive municipal abattoirs in Berlin, Munich, Cologne, and
elsewhere. Here tainted meat, or meat from animals locally
affected by disease, is specially treated by a steam process and
other methods, so as to free it from all danger to health. Meat so
treated does not, of course, have the nutritive value of ordinary
fresh meat, but the Germans acted on the principle that anything
was better than nothing. Such meat was described as _bedingt
tauglich_ (that is, fit for consumption under reserve). It was
sold before the war at very low rates to the poorer population, who
in times of scarcity came great distances and kept long vigils
outside the _Freibank_, to be near the head of the queue when the
sale began. Thus we see that many Germans long ago acquired the
habit of standing in line for food, which is such a characteristic
of German city life to-day.

Horseflesh was consumed before the war in Germany, as in Belgium
and France. Its sale was carefully controlled by the police, and
severe punishment fell upon anyone who tried to disguise its
character. An ordinary butcher might not sell it at all. He had
to be specially licensed, and to maintain a special establishment
or a