The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1912-08-21
REVIEWS
 FROM Our Exchanges
V NLI4sKIIN- INNU
 THE MIDDLENIAN Springfield Union)
AS TO ELIMINATING

Springfield Union)
 Despite the movement for the es- tablishment of municipal public mar
 kets in Massachusetts cities, enabling
 the consumer to establish direct re-
 lations with the producer, reports from places where such markets have
 been inexistence for many years indi-
 cate that the salutariness of this pro- vision is more imaginary than real, for the simple reason that the public fails
 to patronize such markets literally, once they are established New Or leans is about to abandon it's famous
 old French market, conducted on the lines referred to,and a once large mar ket of the same sort in St. Louis is all but extinct. Of this latter market the St. Louis Globe-Democrat Says: "St.
 Louis, within the last decade, has act ually lost a great street market which once stretched practically all the way from Choteau avenue south on Broad way down to Soulard street,and some
 times beyond. Soulard street itself still retains shadow of it's once flourish ing little market, but its old habitues say it is only a shadow, and they complain that the farmers, for whom the little Soulard market was origin ally established, are being crowded out by dealers in grimcracks and knick- knacks for whom there seems to be a louder call than for marketers bearing the staffs of life"
 The idea of eliminating the middle men from commerce in food products has taken a considerable hold Of the public in places where the experiment has not been tried out, and this idea found encouragement from Col Roose- welt in his recent Chicago speech. It is pretty certain, however, that the middleman will continue to be an im- portant factor in the economy of dis tribution, of foods as we'll as other products Artificial devices and condi- tions that enable middlemen to make unjust and disproportionate exactions should be eliminated, of course. as speedily as possible. Owing to the per- stability of many kinds of food prod ucts, it is important that the system of distribution in this connection should be as effective as possible. But the rniddleman never will be driven out of business by establishing public markets, for the reason that the aver age customer, so far as can be judged, does not care to go to the trouble or buying from the farmer, though the latter take the trouble to haul his pro- ducts to a convenient point in the consumers own city; he prefers to
 deal with the middIeman who will take the orders by telephone and deliver the goods at the home
 There Is one agency, however, that promises 10 De or real duVdHIdBe HI putting consumers into direct relations with food products, and that is the parcels post. if it can be put into op- eration on the right lines. By the par cels post the consumer could have foods consigned from nearby farms to his home in the same manner that he now receives letter, thus having the advantage of dehvery joined to prompt and direct service from the farm The parcels post is not likely to deliver a knockout blow to the Inid- dleman right away, but it's advantages
 are obvious, And in the long run | would be availed of much more wide- l ly, we believe, than the public market | system.