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 principal market, La Halle, is known all
over France for its public auctions. Accommodation is provided for 276
stalls, rented at 14 cents a day per square meter for fruit, vegetables
and cheese, while other stalls for meat and fish are rented at 33 cents
per square meter.

At the morning auctions, held at the rear of the hall, are sold immense
quantities of fish, oysters, lobsters, game, poultry, butter, cheese,
eggs, fruit and vegetables. There is a rule that all supplies must come
from outside Lyons, so that local store men cannot there dispose of
surplus stocks, but dealers in other French cities often thus relieve
themselves when overloaded. These auctions not only enable local
dealers to distribute supplies at cheap rates to the small stores all
over the city, but wide awake housewives can frequently tell just what
the stores gave wholesale for the produce offered to them retail later
in the day, so a check can be kept on overcharges.

The auctioneers are given a monopoly of selling for ten years, on
binding themselves to pay to the city a sum equal to two per cent on
the total annual sales. The minimum is fixed at $1,930 for one stand or
$5,650 for four stands, to be paid to the municipal treasury. Two per
cent is added to the purchase price of every payment made by buyers at
auction, and if this does not amount to $1,930 per stand for the year,
the auctioneer has to make up the difference. The poorer classes
benefit largely by these sales, banding together to buy wholesale and
then dividing their purchases.

[Illustration: A DRASTIC INSPECTION

Of Refrigerated Chinese Pork at the Port of Liverpool.]

There are also seventeen markets for general retail trade in Lyons. The
Terminal Market of La Halle cost the city $886,980. The company which
built it was given a concession for fifty years, on a division of
profits arrangement, but within sixteen months the utility of the
market as an advantageous enterprise for the city was