Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 33.djvu/460

444 law, had made a serious reduction of the revenue. And now appeared the wisdom of the mayor's original suggestion. What Issoire needed was prosperity along the whole line. A partial octroi means only partial prosperity. A universal octroi insures prosperity which is unbounded and universal.

And so the schoolmaster took a copy of Littré's "Unabridged Dictionary" and the "Dictionary of the Academy" and from these he drew up a list of three thousand eight hundred and seventy-two articles on which the city government might levy the octroi. And the mayor and the City Council sat up half the night to decide just how much octroi each one of these articles should bear, in order to secure the best results to the community.

The list began:

And so on, down to zinc and zoöphytes.

The general effect of this law was like that of a refreshing rain upon a thirsty field. Everybody took heart, and general confidence in the future is the chief element in financial prosperity. But the law had some curious results.

The octroi on elephants was so high as to be prohibitory and the Italian organ-grinder thanked his stars that he and his monkey were well inside the city gates before the law went into effect. The combined tax on quadrumana and musical instruments was more than he could pay. Once within, however, he enjoyed a full monopoly, and this, so the schoolmaster told him, was just what the law originally intended, for octroi is spelled in Latin "auctoritas," "by authority," an authorized monopoly. The manufacturers of dolls were much encouraged. Christmas was coming on; the children must have dolls; and the pauper doll-makers of Jonas, with whom Saint Nicholas had been in the habit of trading, were by no means able to pay the octroi.

But, on the other hand, the trade in looking-glasses was nearly ruined. The octroi on glass, quicksilver, wood, tin, varnish, and glue, drove the mirror-maker distracted. The people took to polishing up tin pans, and to looking into dark windows or down into deep wells, in search for the truth that is metaphorically said to be lying there. Then the law offered some curious anomalies. For instance, a sheep with the wool on went through the city gates for fifteen francs. If the wool was taken off, it was charged