The central Presbyterian. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1856-1908, 1881-11-16
EsPoN DENCE.
Letter from France.
PARIS, Oct. Goth,

AhlS, OCG. AOIu, Oh.
Messrs. Editors,-The markets of Paris
are fine spectacles. The Haltes Centrales
occupy the site of the old "Marche des
Ihnocents," and fill no mean place in the
history of Paris. The market-system, as
it is now organized, includes two divis-
ions, each of six areas, separated by a
wide boulevard. The space covered is
about fifty acres. Everything is under
the control of the government, and no
article of food can enter the gates of Paris
without paying first of all duty to the
municipality. This tax renders living
more costly than in any other city Of
France, and is the real secret of the mag
nifciently paved streets, and splendid
the glory of having the finest city in the
world by an enhanced price for every
article they consume. 1t is a novel
method of municipal taxation-the like
being practised nowhere else. The mar
kets are all open on the Sabbath. Thou
sands of women, after having been shrived
for the day, are there traffcking. Indeed
how could it be otherwise Suppose
them closed. Fifty-two annual gaps
would be made in the harmonious history
of Paris gourmandism. You could not
close the markets without slightly troub-
ling the restaurants. You could not
slightly trouble the restaurants without
deeply troubling the gourmands who there
banquet. And more safely may the pol
itician derange Paris political, than Paris
goatrnaoaade.
Before leaving the
we paused an hour to note the modes of
its strange population. Passing one of
their stalls, a gruf voice halls you, " Eth,
dites done, Monsieur teraez, voyes Non
siea1r, voyes." Not being able to arrest
your steps, and deeming you a foreigner,
the ancient and fsh-like crone discharges
after you specimen of genuine Partisan
Billinsgate. They take their meals con-
veniently. A little woman advances to-
ward one of them, with tray suspended
from about her neck, whereon stands a
cooking apparatus. At her left side is a
basket filled with slices of meat and rolls
of bread at least three feet long. At her
right hangs pair of bellows and sort
OF crutch upon which, when stationary
she may lean for repose. Eli bien voatI
Uous mango e. Ouias," responds the
market woman. Thereupon the ambu-
latory cook puts bit of tripe into her
pan, blows up the Goals beneath it, cuts
two slices from her long bread roll, and
placing between them the fried meat, re-
ceives therefor the magnificent sum of
three sous (24 cents, and walks off to an
other stall These people seem not to
lack happiness. They are continually
joking with each other-they have the
condensed health Of half dozen ordin-
ary persons, and their boisterous, rampant
laughter, parallels the shouts of a Dutch
burgomaster. Moving out from the great
market place and passing beneath the
arches, our eye is arrested by the bril-
liant colors of the
Jardin des Tuileries.
The palace itself is a ruin, and bears en-
phatic token of the havoc wrought by the
commune. Strange that the reign of the
Napoleons should have begun and ended
with q bloody paroxysm of the city of
Paris. But the history of Paris is his-
tory of mobs. The real starting point of
the Napoleonic dynasty was that hour in
the destiny of the first Napoleon when he
stood upon a lamp-pedastal and watched
the mob storming the Tuileries, conscious
of the power that resided with his own
soul to pacify revolutionary Paris. The
real termination of the dynasty was not
the death Of the youthful prince in the
Zulu bush-but the hour when insurrec-
tionary Paris was again breaking in the
portals and battering down the walls of
the Tuileries, and there was 40 power
adequate to allay the phrenzy Of the
masses--but that Of the Republic. Since
the republic no more barricades In
this sense the commune with its destruc-