326
MAGDEBURG.
According to this Table the predominant retail prices of meat as bought
by working-class families were no higher in December, 1906, than in
October, 1905. This would seem incompatible with the rise in officially
ascertained retail prices of beef and pork as shown in the Table on p. 324, where
a kilogram of beef which cost 146 pfennige in 1905 is shown to have cost
155 pfennige in 1906, and a kilogram of pork, sold at 146 pfennige in the
former, to have cost 166 pfennige in the latter year. The equivalents in
English money and weight are :—
Price per lb.
1905. 1906.
Beef ... ... ... ... ...
Pork ... ... ... ... ... 8 d. 9 \d.
In this connection the following points must, however, be remembered.
The official figures are simple means of monthly ascertainments of the prices of
particular cuts irrespective of the class of customers with whom the butcher has
to deal. The prices returned for the purpose of the present inquiry relate to a
particular month in each of the two years, and from among a dozen quotations for
each cut, that price (or range of prices) only has been selected which appeared
to be predominant. The butchers were, moreover, asked to state the prices
usually paid by working-class customers. These prices, it would seem, are
now in some cases lower than those charged for the same quality of meat to
middle-class customers, and it is held among butchers that retail prices of meat
have for some time been at a point beyond which workpeople will not go, and
that the burden of any further rise must be borne by those who are best able to
bear it.
Under present conditions the per capita consumption of meat among the
working-classes no doubt falls short of the amount shown above as representing
that of the population as a whole. Evidence with regard to this is afforded by
returns obtained from 99 typical working-class families in Magdeburg as to the
quantity and cost of various household provisions usually consumed in the
week. These showed an average weekly consumption per head of 23§ ounces,
or at the rate of 77 lbs. a year. Of this, 34 per cent, was sausage, 29 per cent,
was beef and 28 per cent, was pork and bacon.
One-third of all the meat eaten by the working-classes takes the form of
sausage, of which there is great variety in quality and price, from the article
sold in the horsemeat shop for 3d. or 4d. per lb. to that sold as Schlackwurst at
Is. bd. per lb. The sausage most generally eaten, however, is either Leberwurst
or Rotwurst, either of which costs about 9d. per lb., that is to say, quite as much
as an equivalent weight of beef or pork. The popularity of sausage appears, in
fact, to rest not on considerations of economy, but on the fact that it saves
trouble in cooking.
Prices at Magdeburg are low, except as regards meat. Taking the level of
prices at Berlin as 100, the index number for the price of meat at Magdeburg is
111, for other food 98, for all food 101, for coal 73, and for all commodities 97.
The index number for rent and prices combined is 86, which would indicate
that the cost of living is lower in Magdeburg than in any other of the large
towns included in this inquiry.
