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180 (i. e., in the form of United States bonds) for their payments. Under such circumstances small manufacturers with a limited capital were crushed, and the business of manufacturing concentrated in a very few firms, which raised the retail price of matches to an extent considerably in excess of the amount of the tax. In later years (1883), when it was proposed to repeal this tax, the singular spectacle was afforded of the larger manufacturers strenuously exerting themselves to influence Congress to prevent the repeal, and asking that they might continue to be taxed. Their efforts were, however, unavailing. The tax was abolished, and the retail price of matches immediately declined more than fifty per centum—i. e., from fifteen cents to six cents for six boxes.

Many years ago the late Henry C. Carey characterized indirect taxation in the following forcible and figurative language: "The whole system of indirect taxation," he said, "is mere petty larceny. It is an attempt to filch that which can not be openly demanded. It is one of those 'inventions' of man by which the few are enabled to grow rich at the expense of the many, and is therefore greatly favored by that class of men who prefer living by the labor of others to living by their own. The man who plunders a city is of the same species with the highway robber. The one who imposes indirect taxes is of the same species with the chevalier d'industrie. All belong to the genus of great men. All are equally destitute of manly or generous feeling. The plunderer of cities selects those which are weak and defenseless, and the collector of indirect taxes selects the commodities used by poor men who can not defend themselves; and where the system most prevails, men are most weak and cheap and food most dear." (H. C. Carey, Past, Present, and Future, pp. 464, 465, Philadelphia, 1848.)