CORRESPONDENCE

Globe, Volume XXIV, Issue 2429, 18 January 1882, Page 3

CORRESPONDENCE

A PUBLIC MARKET. To the Editor of the Glote.

_ Sir, —lt is with no desire or predisposition to be censorious that I have felt compelled to comment upon two articles in succession that have appeared in your journal, where generally publio questions receive suoh careful and reliable, and at the same time fearless and uncompromising treatment. In advocating tho establishment of a market, it is very necessary to distinguish between a market proper and a mere baziar, aggregation of small shops under one roof. As theprevailii gileasoE people seem to run in favor of the latter, if yon will kindly grant me apace, I think it will not be difficult to show that the modern requirements of a city have outgrown suoh a mediocvisl stylo of doing business. Numerous failures in this direction having occurred elsewhere, to some of which I will presently refer, I am not surprised to hear of objectors considering it unadvisable, if not extremely injudicious, for tho Oity Council to embark in suoh a doubtful enterprise. J3ome of your readers, I have no doubt, aro acquainted with the locality in London called the " New Cut," Lambeth. I knew it well forty years ago, it was at that time as I dare say it is still, a thoroughfare speoially favored by all classes of purchasers, and on Satuadays was so thronged with people that it was difficult to foroe a passage along either tho road or footpath. George street, Sydney, on Saturday night, is a fair reproduction in an Australian city, of the crowded locality referred to. One or more speculators considered that here, if anywhere, was the place to form a commodious market, if only to relieve the pressure by diverting a portion of the living stream in another and f»r pleasanter direction, by the superior attractions of a brilliantly lighted and capacious hall, a clean, smooth, dry pavement, instead of the muddy and roughly paved street, and rows of shops for the sale of every conceivable object likely to be in demand. Accordingly, a large private school (in which I was a pupil at the time) and some adjacent land was acquired—the sohool demolished and in a few months a aplendid market was built, extending from the New Out to Oakley street, thus offering a convenient thoroughfare and pleasant promenade by wbioh to cscapo from tho struggling and seething crowd and liberty to do the shopping (with ease and comfort. For a few months it attracted by its novelty, then the shopa began to close by twos and threes, and I believe in less than twelve months it had to bo closed for want of tenants, and was aomo time afterwarda converted into a large threepenny swimming bath. To come nearer home, in Melbourne, at the top of Bourke street, there was, a few years ago, a large open space whore small farmers, market gardeners. fruiterers, and others made a practice of halting with their carts of produce, and selling th samo from th«ie arts. This grew to be such a place of raiirt on Saturdays for purchasers that the City Council, to make it a little more convenient for buyers and sellers, oonsturcted raised platforms at sufficient intervals apart as to enable the sellers to back their carts against the platform on either side, up and down whioh buyers could walk and make their purchases. In this, be it observed no great expense had been incurred by tho Council, and, therefore, only a nominal charge, if any, was made for the standing place of a horse and cart, the owners usually providing themselves with a bundle of grass or sheaf of oats for the horse, expenses wore reduced to a minimum, hence "Paddy's Market," as it was called, was well patronised and a great success. Then influential people began to agitate for a properly constructed market. It was represented to the Oity Oounoil that it was a disgraceful state of things for a city of the importance of Melbourne to be without a suitable market. The pressure brought to bear upon the Council in this direction resulted in the erection of the magnificent Market Hall in Bourke street, and the flourishing Paddy's Market became a thing of the past. Now what has been the outcome of this expenditure of probably not less than £IOO,OOO ? for one shop open iu the new market a dczen are closed. At the close of 1880, when visiting the Exhihibition—a time when Melbourne was filled with visitors—l made a point of visiting the market on two successive Saturday evenings, and was each time struck with the contrast presented by tho cheerful, busy, and rather crowded street on the one hand, and the dismal and nearly deserted market on the other, a contrast when reflecting upon the fine building and immenseeost calculated to depress the spirits and take every particle of jollity from even a Mark Tapley. A few. fruit shops at one end, and two or three poulterers at another distant part, a Cheap John with an audience of small boys, and a few like myself listlessly sauntering through the building constituted its sole occupants. I bought some fruit of one of the stall keepers for the purpose of making a few enquiries, and was told tie stall was only attended on Saturdays, as there was no business during the other days of the week, and nothing to boast of on a Saturday. It would be interesting to know if Paddy was abolished with hia market; it is not unreasonable to suppose that deprived of the opportunity of quickly and profitably turning his produce into oosh, in nine cases out of ten he ceased to produce, and heroin was both a private and publio 1088.

To come still nearer home; how about the market at the corner of Colombo street and the Belt, which waß opened with a flourish of trumpets not long ago, and of which such success was predicted ? Here rents were not extravagantly high (10s per week), and the situation, between the busy centre of the city and the populous borough of Sydenham, being fairly good, offering a reasonable prospect of becoming a busy mart ; yet we find, since the novelty of the first opening has passed away, that of the shops which were nearly all let at that time about twothirds are now closed. As remarked at the beginning of this letter, if the establishing of a market means the calling suddenly into existence some fifty or more shops for which no immediate necessity exists, there is every probability of its failure here as elsewhere, and if it would be extremely imprudent and risky for a builder or speculator to erect a continuous block of some forty or fifty shops without any evidence of their being needed, why, I would ask, could the City Council safely do so under the name of a market, and at once ensure an undoubted success 1 The faot remains, which seems to be strangely overlooked, that nnder ordinary circumstances there are shrewd men of business knowledge and capital always on the look out, and prepared to oocupy every opening affording a reasonable prospect of success, which sufficiently maintains a competition fairly keen enough to protect the consumer, thus rendering it quite unnecessary for the City Council or any other body or persons by offering the special inducements of superior position, or low rents, inveigle men with little or no capital, and less business knowledge, to enter into competition with oldestablished and heavily-taxed shopkeepers. As it is very desirable that the present unsightly rows of stalls should no longer cumber the ground of one of the finest open spaces in the city, and having stated the objections to the prevailing abortive notion of a market, permit me to throw out a few suggestions to a market that would really correspond to its name and be a great acquisition to the city, and meet a want that I have no doubt has long been felt by the small farmer and country peoples generally. It is desirable that a large market hall, with good architectural features should be erected, and so arranged as to roof in as large a space as the site will allow, as little as possible expense beiDg incurred with the interior, and devoted to the real purpose of a market, for which probably three days in the week would be found sufficient for some time to come, say Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. On Saturdays it would not be very difficult to reproduce, under vastly improved oonditions, the peonliar characteristics that made Paddy's Market so successful for many years in Melbourne. There should be ample space for the country'* seller to bring his laden cart of poultry, vegetables, eggs, and butter, cheese, fruits, &c, into the hall, and back his cart into a given space ot Vns, paying a small market fee of 2s or 2s 6d for the standing room of his horse and cart, the carts to be arranged, as formerly in Melbourne, with a sufficient space between the rows for buyers and others towaik to and fro for inspecting and making purchases. City tradesmen, either personally or through brokers licensed by the Counc 1, would often negotiate for the entire stock of a seller early in the day ; and as this would avoid the dawdling and haggling of a long day, and liberate the country Beller to make his own needful purchases and return home in good time, there is no doubt business would gradually resolve itself into this class of trade in preference to retailing. To expe-

dite business operations, in other cases, it would be expedient for the market-keeper to be a good man of business and to hold an auctioneer's license from the Council, operative only -within the hall, and his services should bo available at any time during the day for auctioning the stock of any of the stand-holders (charging the usual commission) desiring to quickly close their day's transactions, as the hall should be punctually closed at 6 p.m. The certainty and celerity of a market like this would, by stimulating production, add considerably to the inoome of the small farmer, who seldom has much money to spend between one harvest and another, and at the same time keep the town resident well supplied with country produce at moderate prices, and by increasing the purchasing power of the former, would materially benefit the city shopkeeper, whose complaint now so generally is that the country people have little or no money to spend three parts of the year, it not been at all improbable that under the state of things indicated nearly all the money turned over in the market during the day would find its way to the tills of city tradesmen before the day ended. Along the sides of the hall enclosed compartments might be provided by the Council for the temporary storage of goods, yielding a rental not muoh less, perhaps, than would have been derived from shops, considering the much greater cost of fitting up the latter. Provision might also bo made for certain refreshment stalls, where hot soups, cold joints, tea and coffee, and non-intoxicants could be suppied to the dealers and others attending the market. Tuesdays the hall might be devoted to the sale of hay, straw, chaff, &3., in bulk (a weigh-bridge being in the hall), corn, grass seed, and all kinds of agricultural produce being included. Thursdays might be appointed for the exhibition and sale of hams, bacon, lard, tallow, pork in the carcase, to., and after the establishment of a public abattoir, and until a separate meat market was built, beef and mutton in the carcase, as it is very probable, after the ereotion of a puhlic abattoir, a class of carcase butchers will arise, and city tradesmen will attend the market in the early morning to make purchases of dead stock for the day's business, and cheerfully abandon the present expensive system of each butcher having to maintain his own particular slaughter yard, which, however, carefully looked after, are so many separate nuisances dotted about the suburbs. Having thus somewhat roughly indicated the kind of establishment or market that would supply a want long felt in the city, advantageous alike to country people and citizens, it is to be hoped something in this direction may ere long be undertaken, and that our worthy Mayor have the honor of laying the first stone of such a hall ia the earnest wish of Yonrs, &0., WILLIAM PRA.TT. The Hermitage, Addicgton. January 16 h, 1882.