FLOWER, FRUIT, AND VEGETABLE MARKETS. 543 



There are many other markets in Paris, but all of them are 

 smaller than the Halles, which offer most interest to the 

 English visitor. A good deal of the choicer produce is, 

 however, taken to the Marche St. Honore, after having been 

 sold wholesale in the central market. When finished, the 

 Halles will cover about five acres. 



There are thousands of Parisians whose garden is the 

 window-sill, or a basket mossed over in the sitting-room, or 



Fig. 300. 



The Flower Market at the Madeleine. 



a glazed case, and to most of them the flower-market is a 

 nursery ; and an excellent nursery too, for they can get 

 numerous pretty plants in them in the best of health for a 

 trifling sum. Considering that a few miles of sea have for 

 ages separated many marked customs of both peoples, for 

 good and bad, and that 14,000 miles of sea have not pre- 

 vented English habits, that have never crossed the Channel, 

 from spreading to the Antipodes, it is vain to hope for the 

 adoption of such a feature as the flower-markets of Paris in 



