TEA QUEUES IN LONDON.

New Zealand Times, Volume XLIII, Issue 9871, 17 January 1918, Page 9

TEA QUEUES IN LONDON.

The past week has seen no dundnution otf the housewife's shopping an English paper of November last. Tea has been even more difficult to got than it was the week before, and prices have soared in proportion to its scarcity. Mori shops have exhausted their supply of Control tea. and 8s a lb has been the lowest figure at which tea has been procurable. The shortage has not been peculiar to any special district. It has been felt everything and all classes have had to suffer from it,.

t At tTwining’Sj:! the t old-established tea merchants in the Strand, who first made their name over* 100 years ago for tho sale of their pare and choice blende, tho unusual spectacle has been seen dally of a queue of well-dressed citizens lined up outside its doors. Men in silk hats and frock coats, prosperous city merchants by the look of them, smartly dressed women and officers in the inevitable khaki, all were represented in tho crowd otf shoppers - wßiting u .tbpre,„ ? Every, day; the stpok, rias sold but fairly early, rind tho shop’ had to be closed, moat days by 1 o’clock. Long before opening time every morning crowds have lined up outside the doors of the tea merchants in Southampton street, Strand, and during the day the services of the police have had to be enlisted to regulate the queues. Poor people from all parts of London rubbed elbows with clerks and typists, In nuost of tea “for the office," postmen, porters,'and commissionaires,, all lined up 1 to! wait ■’their turn during.' the. day.' Purchases were limited to Jib for each customer, and Me price of the tea was % lb.

On certain days in the week Jib packets could be procured by chance customers at the Civil Service Stores, but each customer was limited to Jib only. Ordinary grocers were almost entirely oat of stock.