NEWS AND NOTES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XL, Issue 1824, 9 May 1918, Page 4

NEWS AND NOTES.

One of the best stories in the current issue of Everyweek concerns the fair fame of the Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps, A W.A.A.C. notability went down to the country, late one night, and found no accommodation. A bed could not be had at any price. She appealed to the stationmaster, who said he had only: the waiting-room to offer, unless she liked to share the porter’s bedroom. “But,” said the horrified W.A.A.C., 'Tm a lady.” “So’s the porter,” was the reply.

In reference to a suggestion made in Adealide by. Mr John Lewis, M.L.A., that people should eat horseflesh, an exchange says: “Londoners are now eating horseflesh. When it was on sale, there was no lack of customers. At the request of the War Office, a large firm of butchers at Camden town opened up stores for the sale of horseflesh, and throughout the day there was a steady stream of customers. The horseflesh was sold at eight to fourteen pence per pound, average sixpence below the price of ordinary beef.”

Our main topic of conversation at present, says a Loudon letter to an exchange, is not raids, but food. Next week we arc all to be meat rationed —11b. weekly for each adult, and -Jib. for each child under ten. We are not to spend more than Is 3d each, which naturally will not buy very much. Fish is not rationed, though bacon will be, and we are all expecting to see eggs soar up to a tremendous price. They are at present 5d each, and have been more. We arc all interested in our funny ration cards, with their disc, each of which gives us the right to rather less meat than one offers to a young magpie. Possibly all this sounds as if we Avere leading dismal Jives, but, apart from the Avar, it is doubtful Avhether anyone is a penny Avorse. There is plenty to eat, though it may not always be just what Ave would fancy, and doctors say that there has rarely been so little sickness. The match famine has set us all making paper spills, and many a family boasts that it only uses one match a day, lighting gas and candles with paper slips from the diningroom fire, Avhich is started before breakfast. We gossip now about our last meal or next meal in n shameless Avay, and exult over a “lovely piece of beef” or a “leg of mutton, my dear,” or “half a pound of butter.” The bread Ave get is all right, but it is khaki colour, and ■steams furiously before it Avill toast. A Manchester ncAvspaper terms it. “The staff of death.” Butter has to be eked out at the rate of a quarter of a pound per person per Aveek, therefore one rarely gets more than a scraping on one’s bread. But fish and vegetables, and jam and cereals are plentiful, and if fat people are a little thinner than they Avere, it really does not matter.