selves at the price
fixed by the tariff of the week. When tickets have been issued by the
butcher equivalent to the meat which he is to receive, he issues no
more. Yesterday a decree was promulgated, ordering all persons having
flour on sale to give it up to the Government at the current price. It
will, I presume, be distributed to the bakers, like the meat to the
butchers. As regards meat, the supply does not equal the demand--many
persons are unable to obtain tickets, and consequently have to go
without it. Restaurants cannot get enough for their customers. This
evening, for instance, at seven o'clock, on going into a restaurant, I
found almost everything already eaten up. I was obliged to "vanquish the
prejudices of my stomach," and make a dinner on sheeps' trotters,
pickled cauliflower, and peaches. My stomach is still engaged in
"vanquishing its prejudice" to this repast, and I am yet in the agonies
of indigestion. In connection, however, with this question of food,
there is another important consideration. Work is at a standstill.
Mobiles and Nationaux who apply _forma pauperis_ receive one franc and a
half per diem. Now, at present prices, it is materially impossible for a
single man to buy sufficient food to stave off hunger for this sum, how
then those who depend upon it for their sustenance, and have wives and
families to support out of it, are able to live, it is difficult to
understand. Sooner or later the population will have to be rationed like
soldiers, and, if the siege goes on, useless mouths will have to be
turned out. It was supposed that the peasants in the neighbourhood of
Paris, who were invited to take refuge within its walls, would bring
more than enough food with them for themselves and their families, but
they preferred to bring their old beds and their furniture. Besides our
stores of flour, of sheep, and of oxen, we have twenty-two million
pounds of horse-flesh to fall back upon, so that I do not think that we
shall be starved out for some time; still the misery among those who
have no money to buy food will, unless Government boldly faces the
question, be very great. Everything, except beef, mutton, and bread, is
already at a fancy price. Ham costs 7fr. the kilo.; cauliflowers,
1.50fr. a head; salt butter 9fr. the kilo, (a kilo, is about two
pounds); a fat chicken 10fr.; a thin one, 5fr.; a rabbit, 11fr.; a duck,
9fr.; a fat goose, 20fr.

Rents, too, are as vexed a question as they are in Ir