The Smashing Blonde

Britain's butchers carve the tiny weekly meat ration with surgeonlike skill; a slip of a fraction of an inch, and the legal eightpennyworth is exceeded. The Ministry of Food sometimes tests these craftsmen, and last week its testing methods came under fire.

Said Magistrate Oliver Bell at a magistrates' convention at Northampton: the Ministry's Enforcement Officer "has in his office what I think is called a smashing blonde. He sends her out with a ration book to see what she can get. I understand from butchers it is extremely hard to cut fillet steak to the exact requirement. I think it is unfair to send this good-looking girl round the shops to catch them out for twopence halfpenny."

Reporters who rushed to interview the smashing blonde found that she was a smashing brunette named Mrs. Helen Caple, 30.

Mrs. Caple's special prey were butchers who had been reported for playing favorites with comely customers. If Mrs. Caple was able to charm them out of an extra cutlet, she then chilled them with a summons.

Many Britons were shocked at such un-British methods. Wrote one woman to the Daily Express: "I would like to punch Mrs. Caple on the nose." But Housewife Mary Browne backed the Ministry: "Yes, snooping may be nasty, but how else can the butchers be caught? I've seen professional actresses getting as much meat for themselves as I get for the whole family."

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