The Mount Holly news. [volume] (Mount Holly, Burlington Co., N.J.) 1891-1942, 1893-10-24
MARKETING IN PARIS
THE COMMISSION SYSTEM AN INDEX
TO LIFE IN THE CAPITAL.

Nothing Is Done For Nothing, Although
All Picking and Extortion Must BE
Hedged About by Time Hallowed Gus
toms-seIling Harlequin.
The Halles Centrales, as they are called,
consist of a vast iron structure situated in
the center of Paris, few squares from the
river on the north side. The streets around
form an open square Other streets con-
tinue their course through it. Technically
it contains TO great pavilions, to say moth
ing of the cellars. Practically it is a series
of covered streets and cross streets, where
one wanders from the cabbage market to
the department of cheeses and from the
tripe market to the fruits and flowers. It's
actual divisions are as follows: Poultry
and game, meat, fish, butter, eggs and
cheese, vegetables, fruits and flowers.
AS to the selling it is both wholesale
and retail. Before 9 a. M, it is bourse for
the provisioning of Paris, where not only
retail dealers come to get their wares, but
even exporting houses must find those
primeurs which their distant customers de-
mand Thus the first peaches are usually
bought up for Russia, often at dollar and
a half apiece This example of peaches for
Russia, when coupled with the information
that the mass of them from January to
May are not grown in France at all, but in
the extensive lighthouses outside of Brus-
sells, will indicate what manner of market
this place is.
Flower stands welcome you along the
streets before you reach the market, of
which they are the promise and the sign.
They share this office of harbinger with
the host of returning servant maids, flow
er faced BONES of opulent contours, whose
stiff starched skirts crackle melodiously to
the healthy swing of their sturdy limbs.
They are coiffed in spotless muslin; their
skirts are draped in voluminous white
aprons; they bear their purchases in CO.
auettish baskets and the commissions they
have extorted from the market people in
cold cash in their pockets.
This practice of giving commissions to
servants on all they buy for their masters
tables strikes keynote of Partisan habit.
Nothing is done for nothing, though all
picking and extortion must be done accord
ing to the time honored customs. The
bonnie will do her best to market for her
mistress and fight vigorously with the la
dies of the Halles about the prices. Only
after the money Is paid and the goods are
delivered in her basket she coolly asks for
her commission, about which there is no
fight at all
What the bonnie does for her mistress,
the mistress, if she be boarding house
keeper. does for her guests No matter
how much she may wish to keep you con
tented in her establishment, she will black
mail your washerwoman into giving her a
commission on your weekly laundry bill.
So it is also with the municipality of Paris,
which forces strangers to help pay taxes
by means of city customs on every bunch
of radishes. So it is also with the retail
sellers of meat in this great market, who,
though you should buy S. worth of roast
from them, would not give you soup bone
without an extra 5 cent piece.
So it is in the inclosed space of the poul-
try market, from which no purchaser is al
lowed to take out anything for himself. If
it be only hare or a dozen larks, they
must be given to STRONG man. to carry
to the street at regulation charge OF 2
cents So 1t is in the division of the butter
market. Around the tables where butter
is sold the floor is kept strewn with clean
straw. This is to receive the dabs of but
ter which intending purchasers have tasted
on the ends of butter testing skewers and
then thrown down. The straw is gathered
ND carefully twice day by the porter's
bows. whose perquisite it is, and they get
from it enough butter to bring them in 500
francs a month.
AS a result of these minute pickings and
savings everybody is cheerful, everybody
profits, everybody is handling ready money.
of the 10000 persons who are said to have
some connection or other with this great
market, from the municipal inspector of
meats to the licensed facteur who carries
home your basket, there is scarce one who
does not get some little whack outside his
regulation pay Therefore the Halles af-
ford a unique theater for the display of
French good nature at its best-when
Frenchmen are in the act of gaining cen
times.
That it is almost impossible to hang about
the Halles and not participate in some de-
gree in this reign of plenty modified byecon-
omy is well known to Partisan poor devils
(pauvres diables), who, hustled out of the
unlicensed 5 cent lodging houses at 2 O'Clock
in the morning to present colorado con-
formation to the law concerning hotels,
haunt this square around the Halles. The
wholesale auctioning, which goes on from
II D. m. to s a. M, they find cause for di-
version and an occasion to pick up sundry
fruits to eat and perhaps few coins at the
hands of generous peasants, who have made
their market and are about departing in
their wagons for the country. Later on
they are almost sure to gain stray sous
from the ladies, who come all gay and lusty
In the morning with their servants and per
haps their children to cheaper flowers and
fruit and meat and fish.
A harlequin, it will be remembered, is a
character in old pantomime distinguished
by a costume of mixed and variegated col
ors. At the Halles harlequin" isaplate
of broken victuals whose strange mixture,
perhaps of fish, sad, sweet pastry and pic
kles, has given it the name. Petty trafiick-
ers make al business of collecting such
cooked scraps from hotels, restaurants and
private houses, and their sale throughout
the poorer sections of the city corresponds
very closely to the function shop" not un-
known to eastern cities in America.
Twelve stalls for the sale of these harle-
uuins are philanthropically permitted by
the municipality in one corner Of this great
rich looking market. Their proprietors
have a semiofficial position; their scraps
are known to be cleaner and more judi
ciously selected than those in ruder resorts;
SO that even the shabby genteel poor and
even dead broke students of the university
do not disdain them. Seven cents will fill
a man up for the day and give him leeway
for bowl of soup to wash the dainties
down. Thea the student goes off to his
studies, and the poor devip' betakes him
self again to the lodging house to finish his
interrupted sleep, for which no extra charge
is made him.-Sterling Heilig in New York
SIM