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Rh Baggage left by soldiers and sailors, and returned to their country after death, are considered as objects comprised in the first paragraph of No. 1 of this article.

2. Rags, and rags for making paper, with the exception, as to cholera, of rags which are transported as merchandise in large quantities compressed in bales held together by hoops.

New clippings coming directly from spinning mills, weaving mills, manufactories or bleacheries, shoddy, and clippings of new paper, should not be forbidden.

XIII. In the case of cholera and plague there is no reason to forbid the transit through an infected district of merchandise, and the objects specified in Nos. 1 and 2 of the preceding article if they are so packed that they cannot have been exposed to infection in transit.

In like manner, when merchandise or objects are so transported that, in transit, they cannot come in contact with soiled objects, their transit across an infected territorial area should not be an obstacle to their entry into the country of destination.

XIV. The entry of mechandisemerchandise [sic] and objects specified in Nos. 1 and 2 of Article XII should not be prohibited, if it can be shown to the authorities of the country of destination that they were shipped at least five days before the beginning of the epidemic.

XV. The method and place of disinfection, as well as the measures to be employed for the destruction of rats, and mosquitoes, are to be fixed by authority of the country of destination, upon arrival at said destination. These operations should be performed in such a manner as to cause the least possible injury to the merchandise.

It devolves upon each country to determine questions relative to the payment of damages resulting from disinfection, or from the destruction of rats or mosquitoes.

If taxes are levied by a sanitary authority, either directly or through the agency of any company or agent, to insure measures for the destruction of rats and mosquitoes on board ships, the amount of these taxes ought to be fixed by a tariff published in advance, and the result of these measures should not be a source of profit for either state or sanitary authorities.

XVI. Letters and correspondence, printed matter, books, newspapers, business papers, etc. (postal parcels not included), are not to be submitted to any restriction or disinfection. In case of yellow fever postal parcels are not to be subjected to any restrictions or disinfection.

XVII. Merchandise, arriving by land or by sea, should not be detained permanently at frontiers or in ports.

Measures which it is permissible to prescribe with respect to them are specified in Article XII.

Nevertheless, when merchandise, arriving by sea in bulk (vrac) or in defective packages, is contaminated by pest-stricken rats during the passage,