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With the arrival of the American cables, the situation changed slightly. The tone of the newspapers became graver, and they endeavoured to awake their readers to the fact that the possibility of a serious shortage had become a certainty. Edition after edition poured out from the printing-presses and the headlines grew in magnitude from hour to hour. “The Blight in America” was the first type of intimation, which attracted but little interest and was placed in the “third-class” column of the papers. Then came appreciation of the importance of the news; the headlines increased in size and moved up nearer the centre of readers’ interest: “Spread of the Blight in the Wheat Districts.” Next came a sudden jump to the first place on the page and heavily leaded type in the headlines: “Failure of Wheat Crop in America.”

Even at this stage, the readers as a whole failed to connect the news with anything in their daily life. Gradually it was borne in upon their minds that the collapse of the American crops—including the Canadian—meant a very rapid rise in the price of cereal food-stuffs; but further than this they refused to look. At that time the cattle question had not been noticed at all; and the general feeling simply resolved itself into a decision to avoid bread as far as possible and eat meat instead.