Evening star., 1943-03-28

Market received Is hams in three
cases yesterday morning and
promptly hid them under the coun-
ter. One by one. he took them out
and sold them in slices, one to
customer. That way, he explained |
ne could divide the hams among
many more customers. All the
slices were sold within an hour.
Residents who usually send their
maids or chauffeurs to do their
shopping were taking no chances
yesterday. Many well-dressed men
and women showed up in person for
the first time in months and scraped
elbows with housewives long Injured
to bargain-day crowds
Will Study Requirements.
In many shops dealers had little
opportunity before last night or to-
day to study the requirements of
the rationing proera1a. Most places
planned to spend the week end read
ing up on the regulations and get
ting their meats properly marked.
Several dealers said they had not
vet received official point charts
from the OPA and would have to
rely on copies clipped from news
papers.
Up to April 10 retailers may con-
tinue to get meat from wholesalers
without coupons. After that, re-
tailers will have to turn in red
stamps for everything they buy. BY
the 10th of the month, it is be-
lieved, most retailers will have ac-
cumulated enough red stamps from
their customers to enable them to
begin buying in reasonably large
quantities.
Many butchers were glad to dis
pose of all the meat they had on
hand because they feared coupon
buying this week would be slow and
they might find themselves with
large amounts of perishable supplies
on hand. OPA will allow retailers
occasionally to set up coupon BAR
gains if it appears that certain
kinds of commodities which they
purchased in good faith might spoil.
Big Problem for Butchers.
The biggest problem the butchers
faced tomorrow was cutting meat
down to the exact size requested by
the customer. Although there were
no protests from patrons who got
more than they asked for during
the past few days, they will be a
good deal more fastidious about
using their red coupons. Even the
most experienced butcher. it was
pointed out. cannot guess to the
pound the exact weight of the meat
he is cutting. At the same time the
housewife who had budgeted her
points carefully will not want to
spend even one Or two points more
for roast than she had planned.
Just how they would handle this
problem was not quite clear to many
meat dealers. Some of them be-
Heved they would have to make a
conscious effort to cut smaller pieces
of meat than were called for and
hope the customer would be salts
fed. They pointed out they could
not economically cut off fractions
of pound
Washington housewives were not
the only ones to lay in a supply
of meat to tide them over the first
few days of rationine. In some cities
the rush was even greater, accord
ing to Associated Press reports. In
Cleveland. about $4,000 persons
jammed the city's three major mar
kets at 6 am. yesterday Detroit
shops were nearly empty before the
shopping day began yesterday be-
cause of tremendous crowds earlier
in the week. About 1000 of Chi
cagos 5000 markets were closed
yesterday because they had nothing
to sell
Meat Scarce in New York.
In New York few stores had any
meat left yesterday, and Mayor
Florella La Guardia and OPA off,
Gals were making arrangements to
assure supply of 100000 pounds
when red stamps become valid to-
morrow. In Philadelphia several
women waiting in line tainted be-
lore they reached the counters.
1t was explained by District ra-
tioning officials that up to now
quotas have been imposed on slaugh-
ter houses amounting roughly to 10
per cent of what they had packed
for civilian use the year before. Un-
der the rationing system there will
be no quotas. Instead, the armed
forces will take whatever meat they
require and the rest will be sent
out to civilian markets in response
to the rationed demand
In the meantime, local OPA Of
ficials in some cities relaxed slaugh-
tering quotas to make certain there
would be enough meat on hand.
Open up a new frOnt-your pock-
nth