In the towns and cities the waste was most rigorously controlled. It was criminal for the housewife or maid to permit the grease clinging to the plates and dishes from the table to escape down the sink. This fat had to be emptied into a special pail, and with the minimum of water. Terse instructions as to how this could be done to the satisfaction of the authorities were issued. It would seem as if the salvage of grease were carried to an absurdly fine degree, but in view of the prevailing circumstances the authorities were justified in compelling the recovery of such an apparently insignificant trifle as a dab or two of grease upon a dinner-plate, since it was found that the daily yield of fat from the average town was about 8,000 pounds. Truly the enemy may be said to have fully realized the truth that “many a mickle makes a muckle.” But the inhabitants, though forced to gather all their fat with such scrupulous care and to surrender it to the authorities, were enabled to receive a certain proportion back again--by paying for it--in the form of soap. The fat was secured in order to extract its glycerine content for the production of explosives, a certain quantity being set on one side to be turned into a lubricating grease to keep the oil-starved mammoth machine plants of the country going. The residue remaining after the extraction of the glycerine was turned into soap. Skins, rags, bones, feathers, hair, rubber-scrap and other articles too numerous to specify were collected by this machinery. All waste arising in the slaughter of animals for food was carefully gathered. Special factories were reserved for treating the carcases of animals which had succumbed from old age, accident, disease and other causes. A farmer was not even permitted to bury the corpse of a dog. The authorities alone were vested with the power to handle deceased animals. These were thrown into suitably designed vessels, sufficiently large in some instances to receive a horse intact, which were then hermetically sealed to prevent the escape of noisome gases. Cooking was pursued to secure the fats and other products arising from the destructive distillation of the dead animal. The gases which were thrown off during the process were carefully collected, condensed to shed any foreign particles which happened to be in suspension, and then fed to the furnaces to assist in raising the heat required for cooking. By the time the distillation process had been completed only a minute quantity of fibrous residue remained together with the solid particles of bones. This mass was ground up and converted into chemical manure.