XXVI 
For Butter the extreme range of prices was from Is. (a price which was 
given as predominant only in Hamburg-Altona) to Is. 3\d. The kinds usually 
bought are slightly salted. 
For Potatoes the predominant prices quoted per 7 lb. showed, as was to be 
expected, a somewhat wide range—from 1 ^d. in Stettin and Königshütte to 
3in Brunswick and Stassfurt. 
For Bread it appeared desirable to use, for statistical purposes, the prices 
for the numerous kinds of " grey ” bread (z.g., a mixture of rye and wheat in 
various proportions), since these were obtainable for all the towns investigated, 
whilst prices for black (rye) bread were procurable in only 15 out of the 
33 towns. As there is in Germany nothing approaching to a standard quality 
loaf, and the proportions of rye and wheat in grey bread vary considerably, the 
extreme range of prices in October, 1905, was very wide, the limits being 4\d. 
and vS^rf. per 4 lbs. The lower limit was quoted in Magdeburg, Brunswick 
and Stassfurt (all in the Central Germany group), and in Flauen, whilst the 
upper limit was quoted only in Remscheid. The predominant range (as shown 
in the above table) was 4jc/. to 
The price of Milk showed singularly little variation, the range being only 
from 2d. to 3d. per quart. The lower limit was, however, quoted only in 
Oschersleben, and the upper limit of 3d. only in Mannheim ; in all the other 
towns the price was 2\d. to 2\d. 
The prices of Coal are affected to a large extent by the distance of each 
town from the coalfields. The entire range in October, 1905, was from l\d. per 
cwt. at Königshütte, the centre of the Silesian coal area, and &\d. at Essen and 
Bochum, in the midst of the Rhineland-Westphalia coal district, to Is. H^d. at 
Stuttgart and Is. 9¡d. at Mülhausen—both of these being South German towns 
remote from sources of supply. In the mining districts coal is frequently 
supplied cheaply at the pits to the miners, or even free (as at Königshütte) ; 
elsewhere briquettes are largely used by the working classes (for instance, at 
Berlin, Aachen, Düsseldorf, Leipzig and Brunswick) for heating purposes ; as 
is also lignite (brown coal), often in the form of little more than coal-dust, for 
cooking purposes. 
The Meat consumed in Germany is almost entirely home-killed meat. The 
variations in price between the towns are not very great, ranging as expressed 
in index numbers (Berlin = 100) from 94 to 116, the differences between one 
town and another being due probably both to differences in the actual prices for 
identical commodities and to varieties of taste and habit. From the Tables in 
Appendix III (pp. 499, 500), it will be seen that as a rule there are for each kind 
of meat no differences in price, except for the very best cuts (such as beef steak 
and mutton or pork chops), between one cut and another. This is due to the 
fact that in most of the towns neither the butchers' nor their customers distin 
guish, either in quoting prices or in cutting up the meat, between the various 
parts except, as already indicated, in the case of certain special cuts which are 
not bought to any large extent by the working classes. The meat is generally 
sold entirely w ithout bone, or with only a small, proportion of bone. It may 
be added that in most of the German towns, where as a rule the inspection of 
the meat supply is very stringent, there is an institution known as the 
“ Freibank,” practically a municipal meat stall or shop, where the flesh of 
animals which has fallen short of the standard of soundness imposed by the 
municipal inspectors is sold at a low price after being subjected, if necessary, to 
treatment (usually boiling) intended to render it safe for human consumption. 
This institution is found, for example, at Berlin, Breslau, Munich, Leipzig, 
Chemnitz, Königsberg, Mülhausen, Brunswick and Zwickau. Though of some 
importance to the very poor, the amount thus sold at the " Freibank ” in any 
town is very small relatively to the total consumption of meat. 
In order to obtain for each town an indication of the level of prices there as 
compared with other towns, index numbers have been constructed, the level of