Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/308

 28(5 PARIS ticm of public stock, and from 3 to 6 for commercial transactions. The former is effected by means of brokers (agents de change) named by ministerial decree, and possessing the exclusive right of dealing in public stocks and bills. Brokers for the purchase and sale of goods enjoy freedom of trade, but the tribunal of commerce issues a list of the brokers who have taken the oath. These brokers meet to decide the prices current of the various goods. The conseils dc pnufhommes settle ditl erences between work men and workmen, or between workmen and masters ; the whole initiative, however, rests with the parties. There are four of these bodies in Paris (for the metal trades, the chemical trades, the textile trades, and miscellaneous industries), composed of an eijual number of masters and men. They succeed in settling without litigation 95 per cent, of the disputes submitted to them. The tribunal of commerce, composed of business men elected by the &quot; notables &quot; of their order, deals with cases arising out of com mercial transactions ; declarations of bankruptcy are made before it ; and it acts as court of appeal to the conseils de prud hommes. In 1882, out of 75,660 cases brought into this court, judgment was given in 66,156, of which 20,696 were cases of first and 45,460 cases of last instance ; 4584 cases were compromised. In the same year 1696 bankruptcies were declared, 10 applications made for rehabili tation, and 7 such applications granted by the Paris court of appeal. Money due to bankrupt estates is paid into the Caisse des Depots et des Consignations. In 1882 the tribunal of commerce registered 1963 deeds of partnership, 1167 dissolutions of partner ship, 1340 home trade marks, and 175 foreign trade marks. The chamber of commerce (under the honorary presidency of the Seine prefect) consists of twenty-one elective members, of whom a third are renewable every two years. Its duty is to present its views on the means of increasing and developing Parisian com merce. The Condition des Soies, as its name indicates, has to determine exactly the quality of the silk purchased by the dealers. The Chambre Syndicale des Tissus, a non-official association, is the recognized mouthpiece of the textile industries and trade in their dealings with the public administration. Post-office and Telegraphs. The post and telegraph department comprised at the close of 1881 56 mixed offices, 22 post offices, 24 telegraph offices, and 862 letter boxes. The postal communications are collected eight times per day, and conveyed to one or other of the 15 sorting-offices (bureaux de passe), which arrange them accord ing to their destinations. All are then brought together in the General Post Office (Recette principale de la Seine), which in 1881 sent out 277,588,000 letters or post cards and 366,816,144 lower- rate packets (objets affranchis a prix reduits), and received 188,815,000 letters and post cards, and 40,716,000 lower-rate packets. In 1882 there were issued 2,143,952 ordinary money orders, 45,823 telegraphic orders, and 240,734 international orders; 3,841,335 ordinary orders, 30,693 telegraphic orders, and 188,430 international orders were cashed. The greatest number of foreign orders is from Belgium (36,835) and from Germany (35,684). Great Britain sent only 19,314 in 1881. Telegraphic communication is effected partly by pneumatic tubes and partly by electric apparatus. The year 1881 showed a great increase over 1880 in the matter of pneumatic missives. TABLE XII. 1881. 1882. Telegram -cards within Paris 619 418 846 611 Closed telegrams do. do. . . . Ordinary pneumatic telegrams do. ... 335,108 221,084 515,503 246,664 Total 1 715 610 1 608 778 Telegrams from outside of Paris Do. . from Paris to places outside Do. passing through Paris b} pneumatic tubes 4,452,705 4,399,558 393,153 4,113,069 3,981,614 314 785 Total of telegraphic messages 10,421 024 10 018 246 The pneumatic system had at the close of 1881 64 miles of tube and 49 offices, and by 1884 it was sxtended as far as the fortifica tions, and into almost all quarters of the town. The Government electric telegraph system has 27,000 miles of double wires; the branch offices being connected with the central office by 94 wires and with the Bourse office by 53. The municipal system, used by the various departments of the local administration, the police, the fire-brigade, &c., and for the indication of observatory time, has a length of 534 miles. The telephonic system on the 1st January 1882 had a length of 1392 miles and 2144 subscribers, increased to 2306 miles and 2637 subscribers on the 1st of January 1883. The central telegraphic office has 315 instruments at work in direct communication with 22 foreign towns and 124 offices in the provinces. In 1880 it sent 11,559,200 messages, and in 1881 13,955,291. (G. ME.) HISTORY. At its first appearance in history there was nothing to foreshow the important part which Paris was to play in Europe and in the world. An island in the Seine, now almost lost in the modern city, and then much smaller than at present, was for centuries the entire site. The sole importance of the town lay in its being the capital of a similarly insignificant Gallic people, which navigated the lower course of the Seine, and doubtless from time to time visited the coasts of Britain. So few were its inhabitants that they early put themselves under the pro tection of their powerful neighbours the Senones, and this vassalship was the source of the political dependence of Paris on Sens throughout the Roman period, and of a religious subordination which lasted till the 17th century. The capital did not at once take the name of the Parisii, whose centre it was, but long kept that of Lucetia, Lucotetia, or Lutetia, of which Lutece is the generally recognized French form. During the war of Gallic independence, after being subjugated by Cresar, who even in 53 B.C. made their territory the meeting-place of deputies from all Gaul, the Parisii took part in the great rising of the year 52, at the same time separating their cause from that of the Senones, who were held in check by Ceesar s lieutenant, Labienus. They joined their forces to the army commanded by an Aulcrcian, the old Camulogenus, which in turn was to unite with the Bellovaci to crash Labienus advancing from Sens to attack the Parisians. Having marched along the right bank of the river till opposite Lutetia, Labienus learned that the Bellovaci were in arms, and, fearing to find himself between two armies at a distance from his headquarters, he sought to get rid of Camulogenus, who, posted on the left bank, endeavoured to bar his way. The bridges had been cut and the town burned by order of the Gallic chief. By means of a stratagem Labienus drew his opponent up the river to the district now occupied by the Jardin des Plantes, and quietly by night crossed the Seine lower down in the neighbourhood of Grenelle, near a place which Caesar calls Metiosedum, identified, but not conclusively, with Meudon. The Gauls, retracing their steps a little, met the Romans and allowed themselves to be routed and dispersed ; their leader fell in the fore-front of the battle. Still unsubdued, the Parisii were called upon by the general council assembled in Alesia to furnish eight thousand men to help in raising the siege of that city. It is doubtful whether they were able to contribute the whole of this contingent, when their powerful neighbours the Bellovaci managed to send only two thousand of the ten thousand demanded of them. This was their last effort, and after the check at Alesia they took no part in the desperate resistance offered by the Bellovaci. Lutetia was somewhat neglected under the Roman emperors of the first centuries. Its inhabitants continued quietly carrying on their river traffic, and devoted part of their wealth to the maintenance of a great temple to Jupiter built on the site of the present cathedral of Notre Dame. It is not known at what date Christianity was introduced into the future capital of France ; but it is probable, judging by the use of the title &quot;city,&quot; that Lutetia was the see of one of the earliest of the bishoprics of Gallia Celtica. The name of the founder of the church is known, but a keen controversy, not yet settled, lias recently been raised with regard to the date when the first Roman missionary, St Dionysius or Denis, readied the banks of the Seine, along with his two deacons Rusticus and Eleutherius. A pious belief, which, in spite of its antiquity, has its origin in nothing better than parochial vanity, identifies the first-named with Dionysius the