sturgeon of inordinate growth, men are sent
round the building to announce the event at
the highest pitch of their voices. This brings
together the fishmongers and the "marchands
de primeurs," whose hobby it is to display an
occasional marvel on their marble slabs; and
the competition is often as warm and prolonged
as when an "old master" falls under the
hammer at the Hotel Drouot, in the presence
of the representatives of almost every
picture-gallery in Europe.

The authorities are much more strict in Paris
in seizing all sorts of damaged provisions than
we are in England; and indeed the Frenchman,
when he becomes an official, takes a characteristic
delight in carrying out his instructions to
the letter. He is most punctilious where he can
be most tormenting, and a market inspector is
as zealous in seizing bad fish as a sergent de
ville is in locking up beggars and vagabonds.

The fresh-water fish are sold under the same
roof, those from the Port St. Paul being
preserved alive. The fish are conveyed to market
in large wooden tanks full of water, and on
their arrival are transferred to stone troughs,
where a current is kept up, which speedily
refreshes them, and renders them brisk and
lively.

In 1867, eighteen thousand two hundred and
eighty-three tons of salt fish and sixteen hundred
and twenty-six tons of fresh fetched, the
one sixteen millions four hundred and forty-one
thousand francs, and the other one million nine
hundred and twenty-five thousand nine hundred
francs. Of these supplies, three thousand six
hundred and thirteen tons of sea and one thousand
and ten tons of fresh-water fish came from
abroad. A great proportion of the latter came
from Holland, Prussia, Switzerland, and Italy;
while Belgium and England supplied most of the
former. More than fifty-two per cent of the
mussels eaten in Paris come from Belgium.

Pavilion number nine, the section of the
Hallos Centrales devoted to fish, has become
much too confined for the requirements of the
trade; and as soon as the fine pile of sheds in
course of construction, is completed, a much
larger space will be at the disposal of the fish
department. The fresh-water fish and the
oysters will then occupy the space at present
allotted to poultry and game. Oysters, somehow,
do not sell well at the Halles, where they
have only been installed since the suppression
of their old market in the rue Montorgeuil.
The oyster trade is a distinct business; it has
its own customs and traditions, and refuses to
depart from them in spite of the reforming
efforts of the authorities. The oyster fishery,
according to the French law, commences on
the first of September and closes at the end
of April. Before sailing for the banks, the
dredgers fix the price at which the oysters are
to be delivered with the agents of the Paris
salesman, and the contract is binding during
the whole season, whether the take be great or
small. Whether these again fix the price with
the large consumers we are unaware, but the
chief restaurateurs of Paris have their annual
meeting, at which they in their turn fix the
price at which oysters are to figure on the
"carte" for the next twelve months. The
price paid by the salesmen, as is shown by the
following statistics, increases every year. In
1840, the thousand was worth twelve francs;
in 1850, sixteen and a half francs; in 1860,
twenty-six francs; and in 1867 as much as
forty francs. The dearth of oysters on the
banks is not the sole cause of this
increase in value. Here, again, the railways
have produced a revolution, and London
and Paris find competitors in Berlin, St.
Petersburg, and Moscow for the Essex
natives, and the green oysters of Arcachon.
Last year Paris consumed as many as twenty-six
million seven hundred and fifty thousand
seven hundred and fifty-five oysters, of which
the greater portion came from Courseulles and
Saint Waast. The celebrated Ostend oysters,
or rather the Essex natives barrelled there, only
reached the figure of nine hundred and thirteen
thousand, and those from Marennes merely
four thousand two hundred and fifty, owing to
the great scarcity.

FATAL ZERO.
A DIARY KEPT AT HOMBURG: A SHORT SERIAL STORY.
CHAPTER XIV.—Continued.

MIDNIGHT.—Surely there must be demons
in the air. And yet I return here quite
calm, in no fury. They drove me to it. I felt
them holding my hand, forcing it to my
pocket. After twenty had gone, not she
opposite—no, nor all the clergy and bishops
in the world, with their smooth platitudes
—would have stopped me. Oh! don't let
me think of it! Don't—don't! Let me
go out—go anywhere! Oh, Heaven! Sixty
—sixty pieces gone! Was I mad? Did I
know what I was doing?

O for this monster, that enters into the
soul of a man, and makes him forget all,
every restraint in the sense of this
succession of defeats! Here is the devilish,
the demoniac part of the whole—the
perversity with which defeat clings to you,
do what you will. Was it not an artful,
cruel, and. monstrous device of the arch
enemy to have selected that precise
moment when I had begun, to make this turn
against me? O Heaven! to think that I
should be sitting with only a few scraps
of silver in my pocket, and sixty golden
pieces flung away in this blind, wicked,
sinful fashion—sixty precious pieces, that
I might have sent home! O vile, miserable,
weak, abandoned, contemptible wretch,
where are your prayers, your complacent
superiority and scruples! And O, greatest
villany of all, that I should not be dwelling
on the piece of news now before me, in
her gentle, trembling writing!

"I have sad news for you, dearest, which