Arizona weekly citizen., 1888-01-14
"HALLES CENTRALES.T
THE PLACE WHERE THE PARSE ! ANS BUY THEIR FOOD.

! ANS BUY THEIR FOOD.
 An Fnormous Market House with Acres
 Finder Coyer-Methods of Buying and selIinr-stirrins Scene at O'Clock fin
 the Morning.
 There are now twelve paviliOns of iron and glass at the Paris Halles Centrales. Each one seems to be devoted 10 a differ ent sort of edibles, and yet the space thus allotted under cover Is little more than half large enough for the city's needs. The four largest pavilions are those where fish. poultry, vegetables and dairy prod uce are sold. All the pavilions are well ventilated, the stalls are commodious and ssdown among the dead men are base rnent cellars, where the stall renters are permitted to store such imperishable goods as they have been unable tO dis pose of in the course of the day.
 The wagons bringing the meat from slaughter houses and poultry from trains berin to arrive about II o'clock in the evening. and they continue coming throughout the night. The emplOyes lift out the baskets ard arrange them along the sidewalks. In each basket Is the car cass of an animal, either whole or cut up into quarters, and carefully wrapped up in stout canvas: also n label bearing the name of the sender, the weight of the con tents and a sort of bill of lading. which is handed to a market official, who makes from it his memoranda. Then a number is placed on all the merchandise which comes from the same shipper, after which the board of health inspector makes his examination, marks V on all meat that he considers 1t for food and has the rest removed to another place tO be looked at more carefully later on. When it is finally found unfit to eat it is cOnfiscated and either sent 10 the Jardin des Plantes To be thrown tO the wild animals, or is totally destroyed.
 In the meantime the forts de h halle, or market pOrters, have commenced their part of the common work. Handling the meat which has passed inspection with large iron hooks, they carry it to the pub lie weighing station. and when the weight of each piece hns been twice recorded, once by the clerk of the cOnsiCnee and once by the city's employe, label is fas- tened to it with galvanized iron pin, and then the meat is hung mp in rows to be sold, Ia erie, or at public auction, to the retail dealers, and as the pieces are sold the name of the purchaser is written on the other side of the label
 This is the routine for carcasses and quarters already prepared, but there IS other meat in large quantities which has to undergo two operations known as the epluchage (trimmingl and the decOupage, or cutting up. This is done by five men, and Is difficult and sometimes dangerous work. The decOupeurs wear a sort of zap, to which a lighted candle is fixed; this is the only light that they have tO do their work by, and it must be executed with great rapidity in the midst of a crowd of porters and other market hands. There are, it is true, a few gas jets here and there, but not enough of them to enable the inspectors and cutters to do their work properly. Why don't they burn more gas; Well, because it is known in Paris that gas is bad thing for meat and other food, and the less of gas there Is used about eatables the better for mankind.
 Four o'clock is the hour when the vente h criee begins. The din is appalling. Strong armed wenches, men and boys are rushing about or pushing trucks bearing hampers full tO the brim, and salesmen perched alOft in small pulpits bawl their offers in voices which sound like dismal howls under the zinc roofings, while GUS toners bid in the same strain. The buyers at this early hour are stallkeepers, proprie- tors of restaurants and hotels, and caterers to hospitals or asylums. These people, by coming early, get their provisions much cheaper than the public will do in the course of the day, though this is not true of fish, which is subject to astonishing fluctuations. The wholesale selling ends at G o'clock, and now cooks and poor wives make their appearance by thousands.
 It is a curious and an instructive scene, [ assure you, that of the markets at an sarly morning hour.
 The street is so crowded with people Shat wheeled vehicles cannot enter; but beyond the church stand rows of cabs, with their horses heads facing the shops on the other side of the little rue that runs along the front of the ancient edifiee. Here on the sidewalk stand hundreds of baskets of fruit, grapes and whitish brown things that on closer inspection prove to be mushrooms. There is a wide passage between the two lines of pavil
 ons, and at this early hour this passage is that lovely that even you, good people of The golden coast, would cry out: ''Ye Z0dsl how beautiful" The colOrs of all the rainbows that have arched them selves over the earth since Noah went | yachting greet our eyes. It is paradise )f roses, camellias, violets, primroses, of all the flowers in the world, at least it | -eems so. Farther on are things which | English people call roots, but which We in our superiority pronounce vegetables. Hun | 1reds and hundreds of rows of red carrots, ls many more rows of white turnips; COWS three or four feet high. mind you. and so sldllfully piled that no vestige of the green stems can be seen, and yet to zach root is such an appendage. And the sabbages and the cauliflowersl and the baskets of string beans and peas! and the | green stuffs for saladsl and the potatoes, ''Arrah, the spuds!' as heard the gentle man-he may even now be one of our first | citizens for all know-say once upon a time in Dublin.
 A little further on are the fishes, on | wicker platters, like round basket lids with handles on either side, turbOt, skate, mackerel, sole, salmon, perch, etc,
 in ten, fifteen and twenty pairs at n time. | These fshwCmen are not those of Billings | gate, but they will do. have no wish to come into contest with muscular red | arms; and, phew, heaven knows they are | just now strong enough Co knock John
 Sullivan himself out of time. Parisians
 like fish, and consume yearly an average
 of very nearly 5l, ,000, pounds thereof | Henry Haynie in San Francisco Chronicle.