The daily morning journal and courier., 1896-02-26
MARKETING Iv aERMANY.

l
 Large Halls are Provided for ,he Sale of Produce by City utHorlties-IIow pro-
 visions are Bought aud S1id--frades-
 men and Peasants Congreaate Daily to
 Dispose of he,r Meat and Vegetables. 1 From the Providence Journai.l
 In Germany, where eating and drink ing is made greater business of life than in any other country on the globe, 1t is safe to say one has plenty of op- portunities to study the advantages of fered for the purchasing of food, In America in a few of the cities are large markets, where meat, vegetables and l fruit are sold under one roof by band of tradesmen, but these markets are not national institutions, as they are here in Germany, where every town, no matter how insignificant has its mar ket, which Is held on week days l throughout the year. In the small towns the market is held out of doors in the large market place, ln the center of the town, and here the peasants bring their produce and arrange 1t ln little booths for sale. The hours or these open markets are In the forenoon, and here the peasants sWelter under the hot sun of a summers morning and ] shiver beneath blankets and heaps or straw on winters day, Naturally the l summer markets are the richest in l fruits and vegetables, and offer the l greatest variety Here the little Ger man maid servant hastens every morn ing with shining face, clean apron ana neatly combed hair. for sine wears no hat, to get the supplies for the day Ill | her large hamper or netted bag. ole goes quickly from one stand to anoth- CT, for she usually has certain ones among the one hundred or so peasants with whom she trades, and her bag is filled with eggs, potatoes, cabbage, butter and perhaps fruit, all jumbled in together. We'll dressed matrons, soldiers, restaurant-keepers, together with the poorer classes, all flock to the l market, which is full of hum and bus l tie until the clock strikes the noon hour, and, presto, the booths all disap- bear, the unsold supplies are bundled l into the peasants carts, sometimes drawn by dogs and others by horses or l cows, and the whole caravan separates l to congregate again the next day.
 l Tn the cities and towns better oppor~ | tunities are offered for the selling of ] food in the largest market halls erect | ed for the purpose In Berlin there are | ten or twelve of these halls, situated in l different parts of the city. Other cities not as large oftentimes have but one principal market, contained in an enor- nous building, ss is the case in Leip- sic and Frankfort. No better opportu- nity is offered to study the character of what the Germans eat than at one of these halls.
 The vast building is open at an early hour in the morning and does not close until evening, excepting for two hours or so in the middle of the day. Here the rich and poor, educated and uned- ucated, join in the rush to get what Is necessary for the five meals day which most German housekeepers con |. sider none too many for the proper sustenance of the body, to say nothing of a lunch now and then indulged in at a restaurant down town. The entire \ first floor of the market is given over to vegetables, fruit, meat, fish and flow CTS, which are sold from stands sys-
 tematically arranged with the owners names over the top and are really a se- ries of stores on a small scale. By the time the sun is up and long before it comes over the high buildings the stalls in the market are in readiness for customers, displaying their wares to the best advantage. One portion Of the stalls is given over to potatoes, and as the crop has been good this year hundreds of bushels are piled up i'll
 pyramids and mounds here; another part to fruits, as apples, pears. grapes, lemons, pluns, huge German chestnuts and walnuts. At the vegetable stands one passes between aisles hedged in by quantities of cabbage, caulifower, tiny white turnips anG yellow carrots,
 which the Germans alone know how to cook well; parsley, punches of herbs for green salad, trays of immense
 brown mushrooms freshly picked and
 numbers of small roots and vegetables known only to German. Here and
 there are situated flower booths where all kinds of hothouse flowers, together
 with more common blossoms, are sold. A dozen roses can be bought here for
 seven cents and a bunch of violets for five cents At present the market is
 flooded with chrysanthemums, which
 can be bought for song. Beautiful
 orchids and lilies, growing in pots, also |, find their way here. At some of the
 flower stalls the women are seen sit ting and making elaborate floral de
 signs, wreaths of laurel leaves and hol-
 ly, and funeral pieces with inscriptions
 on them, such as Sleep quietly in the
 cool earth" Wreaths of all kinds are
 other things to which the Germans arc
 very partial, and wreath in the mar
 ket hall of a morning at night may go , to swell the number of tributes to a favorite actor.
 The vegetable and flower part is apt
 to remind an American of the horticul-
 tural side, on a large scale, of the country fair at home, and is by far the most pleasing of all in the market The rows of meat stalls about the four
 sides of the building are too bloody
 and savor too much at this time of the cruelty of hunting to be very agreed
 bic. These are now overrun with hare pheasants, deer and geese, which ac- counts for the cheapness of the same ir
 the restaurants. A large order of hare or. goose cooked to perfection can be had for twenty cents, and venisor steak costs no more. The hare, 1T
 braces, hang about the stalls, just as
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