Beyond Jackson square rests the French market, the very index to all that New Orleans' love of good eating that has become so closely linked with the city. The market-scheme of the city as this is being written is being greatly revised. Up to the present time the market-men have been autocrats. The grocers of the city have been forbidden to sell fresh fruits or vegetables; if a retailer be audacious enough to wish to set out with a private market, he must be a certain considerable number of squares distant from a public institution--and pay to the city a heavy license fee as penalty for his audacity. Nor is that all. The consumer is forbidden to purchase direct from the producer, even though the producer's wagon be backed up against the market curb in most inviting fashion. New Orleans recognizes the middleman and protects him--or has protected him until the present time. Even peddlers have been barred from hawking their wares through her streets until noon--when the public markets close and the housewives have practically completed their purchases for the day. But--banish the thoughts of the markets as economic problems, cease puzzling your blessed brains with that eternal problem of the cost-of-living. Consider the French market as a truly delectable spot. Go to it early in the morning, when the sun is beginning to poke his way down into the narrow streets and the shadows are heavy under the galleries. Breakfast at the hotel? Not a bit of it. You take your coffee and doughnuts alongside the market-men--at long and immaculate counters in the market-house. And when you are done you will take your oath that you have never before tasted coffee. The coffee-man bends over you--he is a coffee-man descended from coffee-men, for these stalls of the famous old markets are almost priceless heritages that descend from generation to generation. In these days they never go out of a single family. "_Café lait?_" says the coffee-man. You nod assent. Two long-spouted cans descend upon your cup. From one the coffee, from the other creamy milk come simultaneously, with a skill that comes of long years of practice on the part of the coffee-man. That is all--_café lait_ and doughnuts. They make just as good doughnuts in Boston, but New England has never known the joys of _café lait_. If it had, it would never return to its oldtime coffee habits. And the older markets of Boston do not see the fine ladies of the town coming to them on Sunday morning, after mass, negro servants behind, to do their marketing, themselves. Hours of joy in this market--the food capital of a rich land of milk and honey. After those hours of joy--breakfast at the Madame's.