London, July 19.
It is consoling to learn "that the Government has bought 49. million pounds of tea from the Netherlands East Indies. The air raids had led to an enormous consumption of tea. People, roused to get into their cellars in the middle of the night. naturally "made themselves tea in order to pass the time. So Lord Woolton said we must" limit ourselves to two ounces per head per week. What would Dr. Johnson, who usually drank 18 cups of tea at a sitting, have said? Or De Quincy, who combined tea-drinking—with plum, and records that he generally drank' tea on a winter's night from about 10 pin, till four in the morning?
However, this afternoon bright hopes were held out in the House of Commons by the Food Control that next winter we shall be allowed more hall bakers. But hitherto the control has worried us but little and in. the restaurants you would not know] that there was one. though the big hotels have cut down the length of their menus. In private houses, the bigger the family, the easier it is to vary the dishes. Five pounds of meat can be made to go further among five people than two among two and will leave more over for the Inevitable casseroles. So there another argument to set against Dr. Marie Stopes.
T was In Maidenhead a few days ago and it was hard to believe that there was a war on and that Hitler, oF Goebbels, was daily boasting that his U-boats were rapidly reducing us to starvation and that we luxury-lov-Ing Englanders are on the verge of revolution. The picturesque, narrow High Street was crammed with ears and people shopping, Maidenhead is Princess "Royal on Duly The Central Recruiting Office in London Is visited by, the Princess Royal who ft seen chatting with recruits for the Auxiliary Territorial Service. tea, more butter and probably more fats. Of wheat and flour we have enough in the country for many months.
The Food Control is curiously human nowadays. Thus it was stated that although meat Is not really' so nourishing as some other substances "raw eartots, for instance, or pound: fed Brazil nuts mixed with yale mill it was recognized that English people Like meat, it makes them more cheer~ ful than twice the quantity of vitamins absorbed in vegetarian form, and therefore the Food Control will See that we have all the meat pos sible, richer in butchers' shops that any town of equal size that I know and they were {ull of prime joints. How the rationing works out 1 don't know, but it would look as if there must be some juggling with the account books. No doubt, owing to the petrol restrictions, many people shop Maidenhead "who at other. times would go further afield. But for a picture of a pretty, animated, pro-Sperous country town, one could' not have imagined anything more satisfying
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.