Those who had food to sell sought to take advantage
of the necessities of the suffering by charging famine
prices for their supplies, but the soldiers put a
quick stop to this. When Thursday morning broke,
lines of buyers formed before the stores whose supplies
had not been commandeered. In one of these, the
first man was charged 75 cents for a loaf of bread.
The corporal in charge at that point brought his gun
down with a slam.
“Bread is 10 cents a loaf in this shop,”
he said.
It went. The soldier fixed the schedule of prices
a little higher than in ordinary times, and to make
up for that he forced the storekeeper to give free
food to several hungry people in line who had no money
to pay. In several other places the soldiers
used the same brand of horse sense.
A man with a loaf of bread in his hand ran up to a
policeman on Washington Street. “Here,”
he said, “this man is trying to charge me a
dollar for this loaf of bread. Is that fair?”
“Give it to me,” said the policeman.
He broke off one end of it and stuck it in his mouth.
“I am hungry myself,” he said when he had
his mouth clear. “Take the rest of it.
It’s appropriated.”
As an example of the prices charged for food and service
by the unscrupulous, we may quote the experience of
a Los Angeles millionaire named John Singleton, who
had been staying a day or two at the Palace Hotel.
On Wednesday he had to pay $25 for an express wagon
to carry himself, his wife and her sister to the Casino,
near Golden Gate Park, and on Thursday was charged
a dollar apiece for eggs and a dollar for a loaf of
bread. Others tell of having to pay $50 for a
ride to the ferry.
One of the refugees on the shores of Lake Herced Thursday
morning spied a flock of ducks and swans which the
city maintained there for the decoration of the lake.
He plunged into the lake, swam out to them and captured
a fat drake. Other men and boys saw the point
and followed. The municipal ducks were all cooking
in five minutes.
The soldiers were prompt to take charge of the famine
situation, acting on their own responsibility in clearing
out the supplies of the little grocery stores left
standing and distributing them among the people in
need. The principal food of those who remained
in the city was composed of canned goods and crackers.
The refugees who succeeded in getting out of San Francisco
were met as soon as they entered the neighboring towns
by representatives of bakers who had made large supplies
of bread, and who immediately dealt them out to the
hungry people.
