A MEAT RIOT.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume III, Issue 762, 20 July 1916, Page 12

A MEAT RIOT.

—•— i A BERLIN EPISODE. | WOMEN BESIEGE MEAT STORE. A first-hand account of some of the ! recent happenings in Berlin is now I available through the medium of a I copy of the Socialist journal "Vorj warts," which escaped confiscation in transit through the mail (says the

j London "Daily Express"). •It shows that the Kaiser's capital is .in a state of desperation bordering on actnal revolution; that the rapacity of tradesmen is goading the population into acts of lawlessness and violence only comparable with a condition of civil mutiny, and that constituted authority is set at absolute defiance by a people on the verge of starvation. "Hell Let Loose." The "Vorwarts" story is evidently (told under great .restraint, but more j than enough is said to show the tem- | per of the people. The Socialist jour- | nal may well describe the scene as \ "a sample of hell let loose": Last night hundreds of women had I been waiting for hours in front of the Biesold stores to purchase meat. The shop remained closed, and eventually a placard made its appearance in the window bearing the inscrip-' tion, "Meat sold out." A great murmuring arose among the crowd,: which threatened to develop into; something more active than mere! grumbles, when it occurred to two of the women to proceed to the police station and induce the police \ to make an inspection of the store, j Before long two officials arrived on the scene; they ordered Frau ! Bosa Biesold, the proprietress, to! open the door of her shop. Thej police entered, and descended to the: vast refrigerating chambers, where j they discovered thousands of pounds • of bacon, hams, sausages, fresh beef! and pork, saltjjeef, great casks filled' with dripping ajjd tallow, and many! other wares; while in Frau Biesold's' villa residence were found huge! stores of poultry, cheese, eggs, etc. The news spread like wildfire throughout the district, and within an hour Wilhelmstrasse and all the abutting streets were rendered impassable by the immense crowds of j would-be purchasers who surged up; and down in their excitement like | ocean waves in a storm. Gutting the Shop. In the midst of the turmoil there; came a great shout, "Down with the; shameless ones!" and in an instant 1 the cry was taken up by thousands. | Wave upon wave of agitated, most-' ly feminine, and all struggling, hu-1 manity flung itself against the front i of the Biesold establishment. The police were knocked down,' and the entrance hall became gorged with the wriggling, panting, shouting human torrent. The storm raged throughout every part of the building. From the vaults below great joints of beef and veal, carcases of pigs, etc., were dragged up the narrow stairs by the puffing women with a masterful agility, while from "the upper windows strings of saus-' ages, hams, and sides of bacon were! flung into the street on the heads of j the agitated throngs. When the premises had been emptied and several of the attack-; ing party lay in a dead swoon in the' street, and when five of them had! received serious injury in the fear-! ful crush in the hallway and pas-! sages, a force of mounted gendarmes I arrived on the meat-and-sausage-1 strewn battlefield, and the mob wasj forcibly dispersed, many bearing! the spoils of battle in triumph to! their homes.

Thus at length did Berliners effectually take into their own hands the punishment which the established authorities should long ago have meted out to all those who perpetrate usury with the people's food.