316 SMALL INDUSTRIES AND 



elsewhere, are to a great extent international 

 in their origins as the creative and inventive 

 powers and capacities of adaptation which 

 appear amongst the great mass of these in- 

 dustrious populations. At every step, in the 

 field, in the garden, in the orchard, in the 

 dairy, in the industrial arts, in the hundreds 

 of small inventions in these arts, one sees the 

 creative genius of the folk. In these regions 

 one best understands why France, taking the 

 mass of its population, is considered the richest 

 country of Europe.* 



The chief centre for petty trades in France is, 

 however, Paris. There we find, by the side of 

 the large factories, the greatest variety of 

 petty trades for the fabrication of goods of 

 every description, both for the home market 

 and for export. The petty trades at Paris so 

 much prevail over the factories that the average 

 number of workmen employed in the 98,000 

 factories and workshops of Paris is less than 

 six, while the number of persons employed in 

 workshops which have less than five operatives 

 is almost twice as big as the number of persons 

 employed in the larger establishments .f In 



* Some further details about the Lyons region and St. Etienne 

 are given in Appendix U. 



f In 1873, out of a total population of 1,851,800 inhabiting 

 Paris, 816,040 (404,408 men and 411,632 women) were living 

 on industry, and out of them only 293,691 were connected with 



