174 
DANTZIG. 
Meat. 
The meat consumed in Dantzig consists almost entirely of produce of the 
immediate Prussian hinterland, and includes no foreign meat whatever. The 
fact is a subject of loud complaint among all classes of the population, who 
regard it as the cause of the increasing dearness, and declining consumption of 
meat in the town. As evidence of the rise in the price of the two staple flesh 
foods, pork and beef, in Dantzig during the ten years 1897-1906, the following 
official average retail market prices may be adduced. In the source from which 
the figures are taken # it is stated that the prices are for meat of medium 
quality (Durchschnittswaare), and that they are based on the mean of the prices 
for cuts from the leg and from the belly respectively. The former, it may be 
noted, are usually understood to represent pure lean, while the latter contain 
strata of fat. The prices are shown in pfennige per kilogram, in order that the 
fluctuations may be more easily discernible, f 
Mean Prices of Pork and Beef in the Retail Market of Dantzig 1897-1906. 
Retail price per Kilogram 
in Pfennige. 
Pork. 
117 
128 
123 
113 
129 
135 
120 
116 
145 
159 
Beef. 
113 
116 
121 
121 
123 
124 
133 
130 
135 
147 
Year. 
1897 
1898 
1899 
1900 
1901 
1902 
1903 
1904 
1905 
1906 
It appears therefore that in 1906 pork was 36 per cent, and beef 30 per cent, 
dearer than in 1897. While the former fluctuated considerably and reached its 
lowest prices in 1900 and 1904, the movement of beef prices has been steadily 
upward except between 1903 and 1904. For both kinds of meat the rise has 
been sharpest since the latter year. In that year a pound of pork cost 6^<A, and 
a pound of beef 7d., while in 1906 the former cost 8|/7. and the latter 8d. 
The statistics of meat consumption prepared by the Municipal slaughter 
house show the per capita consumption of meat in Dantzig to have been as 
follows :— 
1897. 
lbs. 
148 
1898. 
lbs. 
135 
1899. 
lbs. 
149 
1900. 
lbs. 
151 
1901. 
lbs. 
133 
1902. 
lbs. 
113 
1903. 
lbs. 
117 
1904. 
lbs. 
119 
Figures for the years subsequent to 1904 are not obtainable, but those for 
the eight years shown above indicate that the price of pork has a dominant 
influence on the total consumption of meat, for, with a rise in the price of pork, 
we find a decline in the total consumption of meat, and vice versa. Nor is this 
surprising having regard to the fact that the weight of pork consumed in the 
year exceeds that of all the other kinds of meat taken together. The exact 
proportion in Dantzig as shown by the report of the Municipal Slaughterhouse 
Administration for 1904,! are as follows : Pork, 58 per cent. ; beef, 30 per cent. ; 
* Statistisches Jahrbuch für das Deutsche Reich, 1907, p. 235. 
t Kilogram = 2 2 lbs. avoirdupois. 100 pfennige = about Is. 
{ Verwaltungsbericht über den Städtischen Schlacht- und Viehhof zu Dantzig für das 
Jahr 1904. Dantzig, 1905, pp. 14-15.