542 FLOWER, FRUIT, AND VEGETABLE MARKETS. 



the name and number of the occupant is plainly printed ; 

 there is usually a free passage between each two rows, 

 along which the purchaser can leisurely walk and survey 

 the produce, and in fact there is every convenience for 

 both purchaser and seller. The adoption of the same 

 system of stalls in our grand new fruit and vegetable 

 market, which we may, I trust, look forward to, would be 

 a great improvement ; but London is now so vast in extent 

 that nothing less than a good series of well-managed 

 markets will ever supply its population with a sufficiency 

 of fresh vegetable food, which is the most wholesome and 

 necessary of all. 



The history of the Halles Centrales illustrates to some 

 extent the essentially practical turn changes and improve- 

 ments 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 Paris gradually 

 surrounded it with its narrow old streets, and eventually 

 the place became a horrible nuisance. Then the govern- 

 ment 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. 



Some of the pavilions are not yet complete, but they will 

 be on the same plan as those already in existence. The most 

 noticeable and admirable features of this great covered market 

 are the neat stalls for retail dealers before alluded to, light- 

 ness of design and good ventilation, and the roomy, airy 

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

 protection against extremes of weather at all seasons ; it is 

 cool and shady in summer, the system of cellars under- 

 neath roomy and good, and with many useful arrangements 

 for storing away the provisions, both live 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. 



