The daily gazette., 1881-04-13
IN A FRENCH MARKET.
WHAT 10 TO BE SEEN AND FOUND IN
THR CANNES MARKET.

WHAT IL TO BE SEEN AND POUND IN
THR CANNES MARKET.
From the Partisan.
Behind me was the market-placs,
which was crowded with motley
throng Of buyers and sellers. Cannois,
middie-class people who like to do
their own marketing, cloaely followed
by their mob capped boz les, bearing
formidable-looking baskets wherein
they carry home their pu chases; visi-
tors of modest means or economical
habIts furnished with fancy wn"ked-
bas1 cts, into which they GRAINED
their parsley, leeks and fruits to hide
them from the public eye; smart
Parisian and provincial cooks; a few
neat-looking Erglish domestics; u
great many unkempt, ua"ashed, SLOW
snly-dressed Jfllus dx pays, who come
to Cannes during the season as cooks
and maids of all work, and, though
ignorant of the element of their duties,
demand double the wages that it is
customary to give experienced town
servants employees, eprts with the
bonaes, anxious to get q glimpse Of
their charmers ere entering into their
respective bureaax /; gamins, faneurs
and visit ors who come thither merely
because they have nothing else more
attractive to call them elsewhere, or
to while away an idle hour, saunter,
jostle elbows, glide and push their way
70 and from among the crowd congre-
gated principally between the two long
rows of stalls loaded with vegetables,
fruit, flowers, etc., which compose the
body of the market.
On these stalls potatoes, onions,
clusters of proveneal roses, tulips,
heliotropes, new peas, spring cab
bages, cauliaowers, apples, grapes,
beet-roots, tomatoes, anemones, lilies
Of the valley, artichokes, violets, rad
ishss, endive, celery, carrots, prim-
roses, turnips, minosa, heather, etc.,
are huddled or symetrioslly arranged
together in a strange medly of general
unfitnsss Of blending odors, kind,
form and color. Most of the vendors
in the market are women from about
10 years of age to 10.
The other features of the market are
as numerous and as varied as those of
a country fair, which, indeed, it re-
sembles very much. Strewn about the
ground in heaps are second hand
shoes, clothes, tlre-irons, hooks, car
pets, tables, all inteIspersed with the
scarlet-draped counters of the Algerian
trinket-dealer, itinerary cutters, haber-
dashers, confectioners and pastry
cooks, whom you see rolling out their
paste in dirty clothes and dirtier
hands and nails ballad singers, shoot
ing galleries, stout-limbed, sturdy
looking Spanish peddlers, clad in their
national garb of velveteen breeches,
white stockings, short jackets and gay
colored sashes wander among the
crowd civilly demand permission to
spread out before you their shawls
and stuffs, resplendent with brilliant
colors and glittering with Lold and sill
yer tinsel.
Italian, Spanish, French, English,
Swedish, Russian, German-all the
principal languages of Europe-striks
your ears as you lounge through the
Cannes emporium of pot -au feu fumes,
uncouth garm nts, Spanish stuffs and
Algerian jewelry. At II o'clock the
market is over; posse of women
scavengers arrive, armed with birch
brooms and accompanied by two gen
darmes, who take possession of the
east end of the markets and begin at
once to "tidy up" There is great
commotion and general scurrying
among the vendors Of the invaded
quarter to pack up their unsold goods
to prevent them being damaged by the
clouds of dust the brooms are ruth
lessly raising over them.