That is, every Monday morning each person was given
a card which had annexed to it a number of little perforated
sections about the size of a quarter of a postage stamp, each
marked with twenty-five, fifty or one hundred. The total of these
figures constituted the allowance of each person in grammes per
week. The person desiring to buy bread either at a baker's or in
a restaurant must turn in these little stamped sections for an
amount equivalent to the weight of bread purchased. Each baker
was given a certain amount of meal at the commencement of each
week, and he had to account for this meal at the end of the week
by turning in its equivalent in bread cards.
As food became scarce, the card system was applied to meat, potatoes,
milk, sugar, butter and soap. Green vegetables and fruits were
exempt from the card system, as were for a long time chickens,
ducks, geese, turkeys and game. Because of these exemptions the
rich usually managed to live well, although the price of a goose
rose to ridiculous heights. There was, of course, much underground
traffic in cards and sales of illicit or smuggled butter, etc.
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