THE GREAT MARKETS OF PARIS. (Translated for the Scientific American from the French.)

Otago Witness, Issue 838, 20 December 1867, Page 4

THE GREAT MARKETS OF PARIS. (Translated for the Scientific American from the French. )

There is in the heart of Paris a monument where 1,900,000 mouths seek daily food ; in whose neighbourhood are to be found street after street which wake when the other portions of the city prepare for sleep ; a quarter traversed every night by 12,000 vehicles, and which, from four to 10 o'clock a.m., sees added to its 42,000 inhabitants a floating population of at least 60,000 souls : in one word, the Great Markets. Six uniform divisions, marshalled in two ranks, are sheltered under an immense iron roof, which has a superficies of 20,000 yards. A forest of delicate and elegant small columns supports this gigantic roof. Broad sidewalks, planted with trees, extend around the vast parallelogram, which is crossed by three broad covered avenues. The six divisions have each their especial trade. One is devoted to fruit and flowers ; another to vegetables ; another to fish ; this to eggs and butter by the whole a 7 e ; that to game and poultry ; as for ihe sixth and last, so many different sorts of things are sold there that the Archbishop of Paris himself conld nob hear to the end the long enumeration of them. It was when the new Great Markets were opened, Archbishop Sibour had at his elbow a cicerone, whose duty it was to inform him of the destination of the several divisions, as he blessed them one after the other. He had already blessed five of them. When he reached the sixth the cicerone said, " This is the division of retail butter." " I bless the division of retail butter," said the Archbishop, raising his hands. "And of bread," whispered the cicerone. "Of retail butter and bread," added the Archbishop, catching himself. "And of cooked meat." "Of retail butter and bread and cooked meat." "And kitchen furniture." "Oh!" exclaimed the good Archbishop, making a gesture of despair, "I bless everything." Beneath the Great Markets are visible •ffie cellars. There are thirty of them. As a general rule, each cellar is a basement floor, which is an exact copy of the division above ground. There are the same lines of stalls, only instead of the stalls above ground there are lofty recesses, divided by iron railing, with numbers corresponding to the numbers of the shops above them. These recesses are the store rooms of the market people ; they keep their stock and baskets in them. They are all alike ; except that the fishmongers have, besides, reservoirs supplied with running water, where fishes I are kept alive. In the cellar of retail butter dealers several conscientious tradesmen are to be discovered giving their stock (which is : sometimes a little rancid), the desired fresh taste. They mix by gas light on wooden boards their venerable butter, ■water it, add a little fiour if the butter lacks consistency, and if it is too pale they add carrot juice or carmine, which in a few moments gives the palest butter ihe beautiful orange color so dear to all housewives.

In the -next cellar are the poultry shambles. Around eight immense marble tables, placed equidistant from each other and in regular order, are men, women, and children, cutting, clipping, tearing, picking, pulling. They have all been at work since 11 o'clock p. m. , and they "will not have ended their task before five or six o'clock a.m., for they have to prepare some 1000 or 1200 geese, turkeys, chickens, ducks, or pigeons for the market stalls. Everywhere in the neighborhood of this cellar one sees nothing but baskets full of feathers, baskets full of poultry under sentence of death, heaps of dressed poultry. Here is a line of ducks hanging by one leg, head downward. Presently a young girl comes with a huge knife. Her little hand slips the steel on the neck of the duck nearest her. You would think she was caressing it, she is so rapid and slight. She goes to the' next, and to the next ; a second for each duck. She passes on, her task ended, as quietly as if she had been pricking apples for the oven.

The Great Markets are still quiet, but labor has begun its tasks even above ground. One detects faint glimmers of light through the iron railings of the divisions allotted to frui€ and vegetables. If one goes near, one discovers women seated around lamps or lanterns. They are shelling peas. A large number of women earn their daily bread for six months of the year by shelling peas. One may form some conception of the number of peas required, when he is told that Paris consumes during these six months 600,000 bags, say, 30,000,000 quarts of the valuable vegetable. There are some vegetable preservers who employ every season 200 women to do nothing but shell peas for them. They get 30 sous for shelling a large basket which contains 25 pounds of

peas. An active 'woman can shell 50 pounds in her 10 or 12 hours of labor ; but then she must not dawdle. The Jporters of the Great Markets are organised in an excellent association. Five or six hundred members belong to their society, and they unload and load not only in the Great Markets, but in several other important markets. They are divided into gangs, which are subdivided into squads, each having a " boss" or head man. At the Great Markets are to be found the butter porters, the fruit porters, the meat porters, the flour porters, and the others. Markets in Paris have their own porters ; La Yallee porters, Le Mail porters, Le Marche' Noir porters. A head ''boss" is invested with the sovereignty over all of them, although he does not receive one sou more than any of them. He is the beau-ideal of the constitutional monarch. He is paid little or nothing, and personally has no power, neither to reward nor to punish. The butter porters and meat porters earn their 10 francs a morning. Next to them come the fruit porters, and the fish and flour porters. The latter earn at most five francs a morning ; to make up this disproportion, the police allow the flour porters to work for bakers, and the fish porters to unload peas. The people we see arranging long narrow bags in lines, like so many sausages, along the sidewalks, are porters of the Great Markets. While a squad work under the eye of their " boss," another squad, stretched at length on the sidewalk, take their rest. They sleep under the feet of passers, their heads covered with their striped cotton caps. Near them lies the white felt hat, with an immense brim, their classical headpiece, which is, however, merely an accessory of their costume, and is not, as is commonly believed, the essential element of it. The porter never wears this hat unless he has sacks to carry, for when he has baskets to carry he places them on a leathern cushion secured to his shoulder, and when he has back baskets to carry he places around his neck a wadded collar, to prevent the friction of the basket. When you see in the Great Markets a tall, stalwart fellow, with merely a moustache, with square shoulders and solid legs, calm, silent, and active, as a general rule you may be sure he is a porter. And when you see a little fellow, fat, well fed, clean shaved, looking like a retired tradesman who is sauntering for pleasure, but bends every moment under the weight of his abdomen and is constantly obliged to take a seat in order to support his own weight, be sure he is a "boss." As we quit the porters we discover in obscurity the Awakener. He undertakes, for a trifling amount of money, to rouse at any given hour of the night -whoever may confide the care of their interests to him. It is a grave question for the laborers of the Great Markets to be roused in due season. He goes about the streets in the neighborhood of the Great Markets from ten o'clock p.m. to four o'clock a. m. , bawling to this one, ringing up that one, and continuing to bawl and ring until the sleeper gives signs of life by bawling back or tapping on the window. Each customer pays him one or two sous a night, or between thirty sous and three francs a month, according to the distance he is obliged to come. Some customers give him as much as three sous ; these are the hard sleepers, who must be pulled out of bed or be shaken by the arm. The Awakener is an enameller by trade, and he can make good days' wages; but he prefers poor nights ill-paid passed out of doors. His trade of Awakener used to bring him in on an average 480dols a year.

Near by, oc stools, are several men ; no shirts ; their whole costume consisting of canvas pantaloons, secured by a strap around their waist. They throw vague objects into immense boilers. These strange workmen are artichoke boilers. An active, lively, healthy brunette, the mistress of the establishment, stimulates them by voice and gesture. Her name is Pauline Gandon. She is the largest artichoke boiler of the neighborhood. During four months of the year she does business to the amount of 4000dols. In the artichoke season, wagons full of them are daily emptied in front of her door. Women wash them and cut off the stalk. They are then sorted, according to size, and packed in the boilers, the several layers being separated by linen cloths. An immense wood fire is carefully kept up, during the whole period of time required to cook them, and which lasts till daybreak. From five o'clock a.m., to eight o'clock a.m., there is quite a procession of green grocers, petty eatinghouse keepers, and vegetable pedlars, coming to purchase their daily supply. In these three hours' time at least 3000 artichokes are Bold. There are not above three or four great artichoke boilers in the neighborhood of the Great Markets, because this business req\iires not only the appliances to carry it on, but a good many servants and large daily expenditure of ready money. Let us return to the Great Markets,

Already tho market gardeners are beginning to spread their stock in trade. They come early to select their place — to secure a favorite comer, and then most of them bring articles which can be sold as

soon as the bell anmmnces two o'clock,

Here are potatoes, there are salads, yonder are fruits, or cresses, taken otit of the carts and placed on the market. After the marketmen and marketwomen count there baskets they lie down in the midst of their vegetables. Some of them keep watch, wrapped in their thick cloaks.

Strange figures go to and fro in silence. These uneasy shadows belong to a strange corporation — the clan of vicious and good-for-nothing fellows, or, as it is called, la Gouape — vagabonds driven nightly to the Great Markets for the sake of the shelter they afford. They are chiefly lazy fellows, professional thieves, and good-for-nothing workmen dismissed from their places.

' Formerly vintner's shops were allowed to remain open all night for the sake of marketmen who came from a distance. But the disorderly scenes witnessed in them led the police to interdict their opening before 3 o r clock a. m. To lessen the inconveniences of this measure, some men were authorised to hawk coffee among the market gardeners and other nocturnal laborers.

Observe those young fellows with aprons, moving actively from group to group. : Each one carries a tin apparatus to which . a great many tin boxes, that jingle as he moves, are suspended by hooks. A box • contains spoons, and small papers which . hold each two lumps of sugar. These are Sausserousse's waiters. Sausserousse is one of the characters of the Great Markets. He rises regularly at 11 o'clock p.m., and goes to bed the next day at four o'clock p.m. His establishment is in the Rue dcs Innocents, and is the rendezvous of all the market-garde-ners. They go there to await the opening of their respective markets ; they sleep or take a bowl of coffee in this house, which is an old establishment. It is higher than it is wide. It consists of a celiar, ground floor above, and first story, | placed, one on the other. A circular stair case goes to the first story, while a stone ladder goes to the cellar. Each story has its individuality. The first is a dormitory till daybreak. Market men and market women lay pell mell on the door — these lying lengthways, those sideways, others anyway between the legs of chairs and tables. The fifteen or twenty leagues they had travelled to bring us vegetables are their excuse. Some of them spend all their time on the road, and often pass two months without sleeping in a bed. On the ground floor the customers sleep, seated or standing ; but they have not courage enough to acknowledge that they are sleeping. They would persuade themselves that they are eating or drinking. Leaning against the wall, or the shoulder of a good-natured brother market -man, their hand on their cup of coffee, or chocolate, they look as if they would defy sleep ; but invaded by the warm vapor which arises from the immense kitchen range built in one of the angles of the room, the movement of the waiters, or the momentary elevation of voices, they are unable to keep sleep at a distance. At Sausserousse's the meal consists of ten sous of meat, five sous of wine, and two sous of bread. There is not much sleeping in the cellars ; nevertheless, sonorous snores are occasionally heard mingling with the clatter of plates and forks. The principal section is half filled by two immense copper boilers. It is in these boilers that Sausserousse makes his coffee and chocolate. He sells about one thousand cups a day at four or six sous each. At least five hundred cups are sold out of doors by those active waiters with tin vessels above mentioned. They go their beats around the market several times during the night and until seven o'clock a. m. After ten o'clock the establishment is entirely empty ; and if it still remains open half the day, it is partly to give customers time to pay their night's expenses. The majority of them rarely pay cash. They pay after market hours.

Day is breaking. It is time to quit Sausserousse's, if we would witness the Great Arrival. Up to this hour the market men were few and silent as they drove up and discharged their vegetables. They become every moment more numerous. The noise increases ; the carts multiply ; and all the neighboring street is crowded with them. The quarter is now surrounded by policemen, who allow no vehicle other than market- carts to enter the environs of the market. There are twelve thousand market carts in Paris and the neighborhood, which regularly bring vegetables to the city ; about six thousand come every day. The apparently inevitable disorderf ormerl) r produced by such a throng of market vehicles — to say nothing of purchasers — has been abated by the px-esent organisation of the Great Arrival, which was introduced only two or three years ago. At present, every

market-man has his particular entrance, his place of unloading, and his particular exit. The road followed by the marketmen is regulated beforehand ; their vehicles move with perfect order, which is a little surprising when one considers the few policemen on duty. The ingenious organisation of the present arrangement is due to the Inspector-General, who may every day be seen, between three and five o'clock a.m., directing the manoeuvres like some military commander. "Halt water-cresses !" "To the left, cauliflowers !" "Go ahead, turnips !" " This wa 33 r > ye gardeners !" " Put out that hack !;J! ;J The rustic vehicles move in good order before his eyes. Each market-man as he enters makes a declaration at the clerk's office of the number of bags or panniers he brings, and of the superficies of square yards he wishes to occupy. The cost of the stands is three cents a yard on the outside sidewalks, and six cents a yard on the covered sidewalks. The clerk gives him a ticket, which is his title to possession. He then goes to the portion of the market where the sale of the sort of provisions he brings takes place. The porters unload his vehicle, and see if the number of bags or baskets is the same as the number stated on his ticket. The vehicle is taken to one of the empty vehicle stands. There are no less than fifty- seven empty vehicle stands in the neighborhood of the Great Markets. Formerly the municipal authorities levied the toll for occupying these stands ; at present, they are leased to a Company which pays 46,600d015. for the toll. As market men, busily engaged in arranging their stock, would find it inconvenient to drive their vehicles to the proper stand, men have undertaken the business for them. Thes» drivers are twenty in number, under command of a " boss," to whom they pay over their receipts. Their wages are 40 cents a day, and the market- men commonly give them one cent, for each vehicle. These drivers give the empty vehicles to the watchmen.

The -watch is composed of men and women, who take care of the vehicles confided to them. They form quite a numerous army, in the pay of the company which farms the stands. They not only take care of the vehicles, but of the heaps of provisions temporarily left on the sidewalks by the greengrocers, hawkers, and the like. They are distinguished by the metal badge they wear on the left arm, and the steel chain which hangs from their waist. There is at the end of this chain a pair of pincers, closed by a key, and which retain* the counterfoil of the little green, white, yellow, or red tickets they deliver for receipts. The color of these tickets serves to designate the sort of heap or the kind of vehicle confided to them. The majority of these watchers are women. They are for the most part good creatures, and are on excellent terms with their customers, who refuse to call them by their numbers, which they have borne since their new organisation. They give them their old nicknames, which werein vogue before they were organised by the company which has enlisted them. This one is called " Green Peas," that one "Planks Marie."

At four o'clock a.m., the market bell rings to announce the opening of the market. None but vegetable dealershave the right to begin to sell as soon as they begin to unload. All the others areforbidden to enter into negociations with purchasers before this bell rings. Sellersare looking sharp, purchasers are examining the provisions ; some men, who seem to be loitering idly, are watching a basket as a cat watches a mouse. When the bell rings, the scene changes into one of the greatest confusion, apparently. Buyers, clamor for baskets, and before the bell ceases ringing thousands of baskets have changed hands.

The retail market-women rent the stallsin the. Market. Their hours of sale are all the day long. They are the chief gobetween of market gardener and buyer. They pay the rent for their stalls (each has her name painted above her stall) by the week, and. in advance. The price varies, according to position, from 70 cents to 2dols 10c. There are two other sorts of huckstering. One is carried on by people who buy from the market gardeners vegetables, &c, at the period of the day when they are extremely cheap (for instance, at the close of the market), to sell them when they have risen in value. The other is driven by market gardeners themselves, who come with empty baskets and buy in the morning from their bretlu'en wherewithal to fill them.

Here a portion of the itinerant greengrocers, called hawkers, buy the damaged fruit they hawk at low prices in the quarter of Paris peopled by the laboring classes. There are some 12,000 hawkers daily moving about Paris, who come every morning to the Great Markets for their supplies. They are watched by special inspectors, whose duty it is to see that they do not stop in the streets nor loiter in the neighborhood of markets.