f 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 marches de quartier, are not progressing in the same way, so the
city does not quite maintain a steady level of market profit.

[Illustration: 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 pr