Cooper, Ethel – February 1916
6.2.16
My dear Emmie,
I have had a heap of letters today which have taken two months to get here…
What troubles me is that you worry about me- there is really no need for that- my own personal friends are so awfully kind, that I cannot imagine any circumstances arising that would make any great difficulties, and I go nowhere but to the personal friends, and to the hospitals where I am asked to go.
We have had butter-cards this month, limiting us to ¼ lb of butter a week – that was little enough, but this morning I see a new order in the paper, limiting us to 1/8 lb! Weigh yourself out 2 oz of butter, and see how it looks for the whole week! Not that it matters one really can get on well enough without it, but what does matter is that potatoes have run out in Saxony. At least, they say they have not run out, but that the peasants won’t sell them for the price that has been fixed…
At 8, I went to a hospital near to play a couple of numbers and do a little accompanying, and now I am writing and having supper- a herring, stuffed with onions and gherkins – my second course is bread and Limberger cheese- it smells just like Mark Twain’s story about it, but is very good- and beer!…
13.2.16
My dear Emmie,
… The food-usury is getting worse and worse- potatoes are scarcely to be had, the people stand for hours in a queue half a mile long … and then can only get 5 lb at a time- that is, if they have luck. Bread has been cut down again, and cheese is very scarce…
20.2.16
My dear Emmie,
… Franio is back, and his description of the condition of things in Warsaw beggars belief! The people are dying of hunger by thousands already. Everything eatable is requisitioned by the Germans – they pay for nothing, but give an I.O.U. that is to be paid at the end of the war. The fare in the train is 1 ½ times the former 1st class fare, and for that you are only allowed to travel 3rd class. No Pole is allowed to enter the 1st or 2nd class…
27.2.16
My dear Emmie,
I am playing three times this week in hospitals – I seem to be getting popular there! The other day a solider said to me, “It is good of you to come here, but the English are like that – when the war is over I am going to come to England- it is a better country than this – we have a bad Constitution and the Government is still worse…
