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not a place which the habitual Parisian cares to venture into. Apart from its own peculiar and particularly pungent odours, the markets are peopled with a class of stallkeeper who do not exactly keep their tongue in their pocket, as the French say. They have, in fact, a flow of language, and it requires a brave man to make a stand against it--and all the brave men are at the front just now.

But the Central Markets not only have a language of their own; they have ways and methods of dealing that require long years of acquaintance to fathom, so only experts venture to make head or tail of them.

All this means that between the Central Markets, at the depository, and most of all that Paris wants to eat, and the actual consumer as represented by the ordinary housewife starting out on her daily round of shopping, there move and live a host of intermediaries. Large as their number is, they cannot compare with the middlemen who squeeze in between the Central Markets and the actual grower, breeder, or producer.

With so many hands for produce to pass through, each one eager to grab all that it can for itself before it passes the stuff along, it is small wonder that prices grow, not taking into account the burden of taxes and other charges the goods have to bear on their journey from the farm to the household.

ARMY OF INSPECTORS

The police have an army of inspectors for watching and superintending the work of the markets. The rules drawn up for their regulation would more than fill an old-fashioned three-volume novel, and each one provides for penalties severer and stricter than the other. Yet the profitable game of rigging the market and everything connected with it is in full swing, and no one is more fooled than the police, unless it be the public.

Since the war broke out, the State, the city, and the public alike, backed up by the small retail trader, have done their best to get even with the Central Markets. The more they try to put things right the worse they seem to get. Prices appear to ease for a brief space, but they soon become inflated once more. Or, if they do not, the particular commodity concerned simply disappears in some mysterious fashion until the "powers that be" submit to the inevitable, and shut their eyes to scheming they are helpless to prevent.

AS MUCH FOOD AS USUAL

The worst of it is that statistics can always be produced to show that the rise in prices is purely and simply the outcome of a falling off in supplies. Arrivals of fruits, vegetables, and fish in the last quarter of the past year were exactly half the average supply of an ordinary year; eggs were two-thirds below the proper figures, meat some 4,000 tons short, butter six tons, cheeses only a ton.

Of course, the population of the city has diminished also to a certain extent, but not so much as might be expected considering that there is practically no single family that has not one or more members at the front.

They have been replaced by refugees, sick and wounded soldiers, huge war administrations of one kind and another. Paris consequently wants almost as much feeding as in ordinary times, not taking any account of the fact that portions of both the British and French Armies still buy provisions on the Paris markets.

Notwithstanding the legitimate reasons that can be put forward to explain the upward trend of prices, the authorities know well enough that all is not so innocent and above board as it appears. One or two more glaring instances than usual of manipulation have put them on the right track at last. Other steps may also be expected, for public opinion has got to the point that either the "inside ring" must be broken up or popular resentment will take a form that no Government can afford to overlook or affect to ignore.

A YEAR OF ECONOMIC WAR

The upheaval of the first week of war was indeed serious, and the grim spectre of unemployment was in the air. But it was soon laid.

The best results were obtained in the sphere of unemployment. At the beginning of the war it was about 22-1/2 per cent, in October only 10?9 per cent, and in May it had further sunk to 2?9 per cent. The figures for June were 2?6 per cent as against 2?5 per cent in the previous June.... Similarly the daily output of coal of the Rhenish Westphalian Coal Syndicate, which in July, 1914, reached 327,974 tons, sank in August to 170,816 tons, in September rose again to 211,995, and in October to 223,760, the figures for that month being 60 per cent of those of the previous October.... In later months, in spite of the calling up of more and more workers, it has only been 25 to 27 per cent below the normal.

The writer tells the same story of the iron and textile industries, and traces the good results to the fact that the supplies of raw materials were far greater than had been thought. For instance, there were about 700,000 bales of cotton more than are needed in a normal year. Besides which the stores of conquered countries were at the disposal of the conquerors. The only trades which really suffered were those in luxuries.

The article concludes thus:

The German trade has survived the shocks of the first year of war better than the most convinced optimist could have hoped, and better than the organisation of other belligerents. All fears of immediate inevitable industrial collapse which haunted us at the beginning of the war have been dissipated. Instead of this we meet in all industrial circles with the consciousness that "We can endure."

The words in brackets are significant.

LIVING ON WAR

KRUPPS' PROFIT JUMPS FROM 1-1/2 MILLIONS TO 4-1/2

An Essen telegram states that the clear profit last year of Krupps amounted to 86,400,000 marks , as compared with a profit of 33,900,000 marks in the preceding year. A dividend of 12 per cent has been distributed.--Reuter.

GERMAN DIVIDENDS

ECONOMIC POSITION OF SOME OF HER COMPANIES

The 1914 dividends of over sixty limited companies, nearly all German, and the remainder Austrian, show that in the case of sixteen companies the dividends amounted to 20 per cent or over, the average being 25-3/16 per cent. These companies are mainly engaged in the production of leather, dynamite, explosives, india-rubber, arms, ammunition, and powder. In one case, that of an explosives company in Hamburg, the dividend attained 40 per cent.

Germany is still barring the Swiss frontier, and for the last five days the German post arrived at Berne very late or not at all, thus pointing to great activity in military matters beyond the German-Swiss frontier.

As further proof, if proof were needed, of the sufficiency of Germany's food supplies, it is pointed out that she now offers to send to Switzerland large quantities of potatoes.

WAR PROFIT-MONGERS IN RUSSIA

The clergy will to-morrow publicly anathematise the "freebooters of the rear," who are amassing huge fortunes at the expense of the public.

GERMAN WAR SCANDALS

Details of several recent corrupt affairs which have come to light in Germany have reached Switzerland.

At Mainz a timber merchant was arrested for bribing army officers to secure contracts for his firm. The official investigation revealed that he had paid a total of ?50,000 in bribes to army officers. Some of the individual bribes were as high as ?2,500. This timber merchant, who was almost a poor man before the war, has accumulated in two years a fortune which compelled him to pay income-tax on an income of ?25,000 per annum.

Another scandalous affair was discovered in Herr von Batocki's new Imperial Food Department. One of his officials, Bernot by name, was bribed by numerous East Prussian landowners to have the crops from their estates bought by the Government at exorbitant prices. Bernot pocketed some ?15,000, and the landowners in question sold their wheat at a profit of 700 per cent.--Wireless Press.

FOOTNOTES:

LETTERS FROM GREECE

CASSANDRA IN TROY

All prices indicated in this Catalogue are NET.

MARTIN SECKER Publisher Number Five John Street Adelphi London

Martin Secker's Catalogue

JAMES, HENRY THE TURN OF THE SCREW. THE LESSON OF THE MASTER. THE DEATH OF THE LION. THE ASPERN PAPERS. DAISY MILLER. THE COXON FUND.

PART TWO: CLASSIFIED INDEX OF TITLES

BOOK OF ENGLISH SONNETS, THE.

COLLECTED POEMS OF T. W. H. CROSLAND.

COLLECTED POEMS OF J. E. FLECKER.

COLLECTED POEMS OF F. M. HUEFFER.

ALTAR OF THE DEAD, THE. ASPERN PAPERS, THE. BEAST IN THE JUNGLE, THE. COXON FUND, THE. DAISY MILLER. DEATH OF THE LION, THE. FIGURE IN THE CARPET, THE. GLASSES. LESSON OF THE MASTER, THE. PUPIL, THE. REVERBERATOR, THE. TURN OF THE SCREW, THE.

PRINTED BY WM. BRENDON AND SON, LTD. PLYMOUTH, ENGLAND.

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