I have been in the great Schlachthof kitchen, where I have eaten the stew, and I have nothing but praise for the work being done. This kitchen, like the others I have visited, is the last word in neatness. The labour-saving devices, such as electric potato-parers, are of the most modern type. In fact, the war is increasing the demand for labour-saving machinery in Germany to at least as great an extent as high wages have caused such a demand in America. Among the women who prepare the food and wait upon the people there is a noticeable spirit of co-operation and a pride in the part they are playing to help the Fatherland _durchhalten_ (hold out). Should any of the stew remain unsold it is taken by a well-known restaurant in the Potsdamer Platz, which has a contract with the municipal authorities. Little was wasted in Germany before the war; nothing, absolutely nothing, is wasted to-day. As at the central slaughter-house, so in other districts the poor are served in thousands with standard stew. The immense Alexander Market has been cleared of its booths and tables and serves more than 30,000 people. One director of this work told me that the Berlin authorities would supply nearly 400,000 people before the end of the winter. The occasional soldier met in the streets looked shabbier in the shabby surroundings of the East. The German uniform, which once evoked unstinted praise, is suffering sadly to-day owing to lack of raw materials. I was in a Social Democratic district, but the men in uniform who were home on leave were probably "good" Social Democrats, since it is notorious that the regular variety are denied this privilege. The faces of the soldiers were like the rest of the faces I saw that day. There was not the least trace of the cheerful, confident expression of the days when all believed that the Kaiser's armies would hammer their way to an early peace--"in three months," as people used to say during the first year and a quarter of the war. Verdun had been promised them as a certain key to early peace, and Admiral Scheer was deified as the immortal who tore loose the British clutch from the German throat. But Verdun and Jutland faded in succeeding months before the terrible first-hand evidence that the constant diminution of food made life a struggle day after day and week after week. The news from Rumania, though good, would bring them no cheer until it was followed by plenty of food.