RED TAPE AT THE FOOD DEPARTMENT

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 239, 3 July 1919, Page 5

RED TAPE AT THE FOOD DEPARTMENT

MINISTRY'S COMIC SIDE. In what she calls an "artless chronicle of twelve months' work at the Ministry of Food" Mrs. C. S. Peel tells some quaint stories of her experience of officialdom. One's comfort, it appears, depended upon the sizo of one's salary. Thus certain kinds of writing-tables could lie used only by those whoso pay exceeded a certain sura. "It is whispered," she said, "that another Ministry .official, unpaid, and soinethinff approaching to a millionaire, when put in ehargo of a section, petitioned humbly for a carpet and an um-brella-stand. The carpet was refused, because ho was not in receipt of the salary which entitled its owner to prefect his feet from the chilly blast, but, t.i make up for this, fivo months later, 6evon men -from the Board of Works arrived to fit up stabling for 144 umbrellas!" Changes wcro frequent at Grosvenor House. Mrs. Peel gives us these snatches of conversation: "Where is So-and-so's secretary now?" "Oil, he's in (lie duchess's bathroom." Or. "Fats have moved, haven't they!"' "Yes. they're in the nursery now." "Where have Public Meals got to " "Thev used to be in No. fl, but Exchange savs Pish is there now," and so forth. "I thought you were the greatest living authority on fish." said a lady at the Ministry to a gentleman. "Precisely." was the reply, "and that is why I am controlling mangel-wurzela!"