she had to look after the
younger children while her mother stood in the long lines before
the shops where food was sold. The family were growing tired of
stew day after day. They missed the good German sausage and
unlimited amount of bread and butter.

The mother looked in on her way to the street, basket under arm.
She was tired, and was dulled by the daily routine of trying to get
food. She talked bitterly about the war, but though she blamed the
Agrarians for not doing their part to relieve the food situation,
she expressed no animosity against her own Government. The father
had been through Lodz in Hindenburg's two frontal assaults on
Warsaw, where he had seen the slopes covered with forests of
crosses marking the German dead, and his words were bitter, too,
when he talked of his lost comrades. And then, the depressing
feeling of returning from an army pursuing the mirage of victory to
find his family and every other family struggling in the meshes of
that terrible and relentless blockade!

It never had occurred to him that his Government might be in the
least responsible for the misery of his country. Like the great
bulk of the German people he is firmly convinced that the
Fatherland has been fighting a war of defence from the very
beginning. "To think that one nation, England, is responsible for
all this suffering!" was the way that he put it. He is a "good"
Social Democrat.

When I once more resumed my walk I saw the lines of people waiting
for food in every street. Each time I turned a corner great black
masses dominated the scene. I paused at a line of more than three
hundred waiting for potatoes. Ten yards away not a sound could be
heard. The very silence added to the depression. With faces
anxious and drawn they stood four abreast, and moved with the
orderliness of soldiers. Not a sign of disturbance, and not a
policeman in sight. Some women were mending socks; a few, standing
on the edge of the closely packed column, pushed baby carriages as
they crawled hour after hour toward the narrow entrance of the shop.

Every line was like the rest. The absence of policemen is
particularly noteworthy, since they had to be present in the early
days--a year ago--when the butter lines came into being. Drastic
measures were taken when the impatient women rioted. Those days
are over. The Government has taught the people a lesson. They
will wait hour after hour, docile and obedient henceforth, if