The pleasures of Sunday were on the wane. The outbreak of war had
detracted little from its peace; but its dinners were--oh, so different!
Sunday had formerly been in the main an occasion of abandonment to the
joy of eating. The propriety of such a custom may be open to question;
but we had turned over a new leaf--until the perusal of the old one
would be feasible again. Our bad habits were compulsorily in abeyance:
the "good tables" were gone. The Simple Life is a splendid thing, but
unless _voluntarily_ adopted it sheds all its splendour. Delicacies had
long been falling victims to galloping consumption, and at this date had
totally succumbed to the disease. Worse still, the "necessaries" were
more or less infected, and disposed to go the way of the dainties. Meat
troubles maddened everybody. The beef was _all_ neck. Everybody said so.
Not one in ten, it seems, ever managed to secure a more tender morsel
from the flesh of these remarkable bovine _phenomena_ (for they _were_
oxen, not giraffes!) The meat was indiscriminately chopped up in the
shambles, and the odd one (in ten) who had not his legal complement of
"neck" alloted him was just as likely to be given for his share--to take
or leave--a nose, his due weight of tail, a teat or two, or a slab of
suet, as any more esteemed ration from the rib. It was laid down that
favouritism had no place in Martial Law; but we were not _all_ Medes and
Persians in Kimberley. The rush for meat between six and eight o'clock
in the morning was one of the sights of the siege: It sometimes happened
that people, after a long wait, would throw up the sponge in despair and
go home meatless; the odds were that they had not missed much, but their
grievance was not the less real, nor their "language" the more correct,
on that account. There were persons who never _tried_ to get meat; and
they were probably the wisest--'the world knows nothing of its greatest
men.' In the scramble for precedence a fight occasionally ensued. The
special constable did his best to keep order; but he had only a
truncheon; he had no other weapon, not even a helmet--that awe-inspiring
utensil!--to cow the multitude. Numbers of people deliberately
transgressed the "Law" by turning out at _five_ in the morning to make
sure of their meat; and the Summary Court was kept busy fining these
miscreants ten shillings each, with the usual "oakum" alternative. One
lady (in a letter to the Editor) drew a vivid picture of the