inspected as strictly as the upper halls, to ensure due attention to hygiene. In the center of each market hall there are offices and writing rooms for those using the markets. In the restaurant 150 can be served with meals at one time, or they can be accommodated with seats in the beer-garden.

Associated with this market establishment is a great cattle market and range of slaughterhouses on a neighboring site. The live cattle market dates back for centuries, but the present accommodation was only completed in May, 1904, at a total cost of $1,600,000.

Last year 809,508 animals were sold, including 432,159 swine and 234,457 calves. In the slaughterhouses 713,228 of these were killed, besides 2,619 horses and 97 dogs. About twenty-five per cent of the animals reach the market by road from neighboring farms, while seventy-five per cent come by rail. For the inspection of all flesh foods there are very strict rules, enforced by the chief veterinary surgeon, Dr. Müller, and a staff of specially trained assistants. As in Berlin, extensive bathrooms are provided for the slaughterhouse staff, and baths are available at nominal charges. Though the new market halls have not been established long enough to provide a definite financial statement, the live-cattle market and slaughterhouses do afford an indication of the success of municipal administration in Munich. Last year the income was $416,500 and the expenditure $410,100, thus showing a profit of $6,400. The new produce halls are certainly the best equipped in the world, and the only element of doubt as to their success arises from the fact that three old-fashioned open markets are nearer the center of the city and for that reason are even now preferred by many retailers. This fact emphasises the importance of selecting a central position in establishing a municipal terminal market.

France

Paris has one of the most skilfully organized municipal market systems in Europe. The chief food distribution center for the 3,000,000 Parisians is established at the Halles Centrales, a series of ten pavilions covering twenty-two acres of ground and intervening streets. Altogether this great terminal market has cost the city more than $10,000,000.

Most of the pavilions are entirely for the wholesale trade, but some are used as retail markets to a limited extent. Retail traders are being decreased gradually, so that whereas in 1904 there were 1,164 retail stands there are now only 856.

The total receipts of the Halles Centrales and thirty local markets amount to $2,100,000, of which about $1,000,000 is profit. There is a general advance in the wholesale trade, but the local covered markets or marchés de quartier, are not progressing in the same way, so the city does not quite maintain a steady level of market profit.

THE HALLES CENTRALES, PARIS
An Outside View, Showing How the Supplies Overflow into the Adjacent Streets, Notwithstanding the Provision of Twenty-two Acres of Covered Pavilions.

The reasons given for the falling off of the retail trade are various, but the principal causes appear to be (1) the growth of big stores, with local branches, that deliver the goods at the door, thus relieving the purchaser of the necessity of taking home market supplies; (2) the number of perambulating produce salesmen, who sell from carts in the street at low rates, having neither store rent nor market tolls to pay, and (3) the growth of co-operative societies.

A complicated and severe code of regulations governs the markets. Commission salesmen at the Halles Centrales must be French citizens of unblemished record and must give a bond of not less than $1,000 in proof of solvency. Producers may have their supplies sold either at auction or by private treaty, as they prefer, and as none of the agents are allowed to do business for themselves the distant growers have confidence in the market methods.

In the retail markets each dealer in fresh meat pays just under $6.00 a week in all, while dealers in salted meats, fish, game and vegetables pay a much lower rate. All, however, in the covered markets pay three taxes—one for the right to occupy a stand, one for the cleaning and arranging of the markets, and one for the maintenance of guardians and officials. In the open markets the stands are rented by the day, week, or year, the rate for the day ranging from ten to thirty cents, according to space. Several of these local markets have charters dating back to pre-revolution days, that cannot now be annulled.

It would be difficult to devise a more thorough system of inspection. An average year's seizures include half a million pounds of meat, 17,000 pounds of fruit and vegetables and half a million pounds of salt water fish.

Thus the Paris market arrangements provide an admirable central clearing house, where supplies are inspected and sold under such conditions as to prevent the artificial raising of prices. It also acts as a feeder to the marchés de quartier, to the great convenience of local consumers. Moreover the producer is safeguarded, for on his supplies a small fixed percentage only can be charged by the salesman, and the current market prices are made public by agents especially detailed for that purpose.

Havre, the well-known French seaport, with a population of 130,000, has a profit of over six per cent on the Halles Centrales and ten per cent on the fish market. All told there is a profit of $27,000 on the twelve municipal markets.

KEEN MORNING BUYERS
In the Game Section of the Paris Halles Centrales.

The Halles Centrales occupy an entire square in the center of the city and cost $75,000, exclusive of the site. Gardeners and farmers are not permitted to sell their produce on the way to the market and are only allowed to deliver to storekeepers after the wholesale markets are closed. Here, as elsewhere where the markets are successful, every precaution is taken to avoid the prosperity of the market being dissipated by sales in the surrounding neighborhood. The annual rents for butchers are very moderate, ranging from $57.90 to $154.40, vegetable dealers $42.85 to $92.64; dairy produce dealers $52.11 to $85.11, fishmongers $23.16 to $86.85. In the wholesale markets there is an annual trade turnover worth well above $1,000,000, of which fish represents $280,000. So far from the fishermen finding the fish market detrimental to their interests, they welcome it and cheerfully observe the rule forbidding sales on the quays or transit sheds except under special permits.

Lyons, with a population of half a million, may be taken as the best example of a flourishing French provincial city at a considerable distance from the sea. The