A reporter on the "Echo de Paris" turned coster for a day in order to investigate the profits of the trade. He hired a push-cart and started to sell vegetables with the intention of making 50 per cent. profit. His push-cart cost him three frances to hire, and he purchased 300 pounds of peas for 90 francs. Trade apparently was brisk, for while he was selling at 50 per cent. profit his competitors were selling at 400 per cent. By mid-day all his peas were sold, and after four hours' work he found that he had made a profit of 36 francs, though, as he calculated, it should have amounted to 46 francs. His conclusion is that 50 per cent. profit is quite sufficient for pedlars of vegetables,.and that it is ridiculous for the people of Paris to pay the exaggerated prices which they are asked to pay to them.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.