CiiAi-. XXXII.] FLOWER, FRUIT AND VEGETABLE MARKETS. 537 



chasing everything good and at its fair price ; she also has a great 

 variety to choose from. But it is needless to enumerate all the 

 advantages that a good retail and wholesale market confers upon 

 its neighbourhood. In those little avenues of neatly-arranged 

 stalls in all the Paris markets the name and number of the occu- 

 pant is plainly printed ; there is usually a free passage between 

 each two rows, along which the purcliaser can walk free from such 

 crowding as must occur in badly-arranged markets. In fact there 

 is every convenience for both purchaser and seller. The adoption 

 of the same system of stalls in the new fruit and vegetable market, 

 to which we may look forward, would be a great improvement. 

 London is, however, now so vast in extent that little less than a 

 series of well-managed markets will ever supply its population so 

 well as Paris is supplied. Nevertheless one large central well- 

 ordered market to begin with, would be a great boon to Londoners. 



The history of the Halles Centrales illustrates to some extent 

 the essentially-practical turn changes and improvements have 

 taken in Paris of recent years. At one time the site was occupied 

 by a vast graveyard, where the greater portion of the dead of Paris 

 were gathered for centuries. At one time it lay outside the 

 walls, but it gradually became surrounded by narrow streets, and 

 eventually the place became a horrible nuisance. Then the 

 government caused the vast accumulation of human remains to be 

 removed by night in covered carts, escorted by chanting, torch- 

 bearing priests, to the subterranean quarries that lie under Paris, 

 and which, now filled with the piled bones of millions of men, are 

 known as the Catacombs. 



The most noticeable and admirable features of this great 

 covered market are the neat stalls for retail dealers before alluded 

 to, the lightness of design and good ventilation, and the roomy, 

 airy character of the whole. It is constructed so as to be a pro- 

 tection against extremes of weather at all seasons ; it is cool and 

 shady in summer, the system of cellars underneath roomy and 

 good, and with many useful arrangements for storing away the 

 provisions, both alive and dead. The roof is of zinc, the flooring 

 partly asphalte, partly flags, and, like every new building, or 

 avenue, or wide street in Paris, trees adorn the margin of the 

 wide footways around it, shading the scene of almost ceaseless 

 animation beneath. There are many other markets in Paris, but 



