256 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



subjected to fines, to the lash and to the galleys. In case of a second 

 conviction they were sometimes hanged. The peasant was prohibited 

 from using salt a second time. The brine from meat or fish had to be 

 thrown away; it could not be used in the kitchen or taken to the 

 stables for the cattle. It was illegal for any one to make salt from 

 sea-water even for his own use, and equally illegal to water animals 

 with natural brine. To prevent tanners and leather-dressers, who 

 employed salt in their industries, from putting it to any other use the 

 salt farmers often poisoned it. Owing to the large number of different 

 governments in Germany and owing to some divergencies in matters 

 of internal administration, one can not make a statement on this point 

 that is applicable to the entire country. But in view of the strong 

 inclination of many of the German monarchs to ape French customs, 

 especially the bad ones, it is safe to say that the salt monopoly in the 

 empire was quite as oppressive as in France. It may be added that 

 on the whole the French peasant was not as badly treated as his Ger- 

 man brother; the former first shook off much of the burden by drastic 

 means from causes that need not be considered here. So late as 1840 

 a sort of salt conscription was enforced in Saxony which required each 

 family to buy a certain quantity of it and prohibited its sale to a 

 second party. In Prussia a similar regulation was abolished in 1816. 

 Salt was a government monopoly in the greater part of Germany until 

 1867, as it still is in Austria, Italy and some other countries. In 

 Austria all salt works belong to the government ; such was also the case 

 in some other south German states until recently. It likewise owns 

 all salt-yielding territory. At present there is a general revenue law 

 for the empire and a duty on the foreign product. It is therefore a 

 good deal cheaper in the German than in the Austrian empire. While 

 it is doubtful whether any article of consumption has so long afforded 

 governments a means of oppressing their subjects as salt, and while its 

 history makes an interesting though rather gruesome chapter in polit- 

 ical economy, it is, nevertheless, unfair to judge the ruling powers of 

 the past by contemporary standards. Until comparatively recent times 

 economic laws were so little understood and rulers were always so hard 

 pressed for money that they were constrained to resort to such measures 

 for raising revenue as promised the largest and most certain returns. 

 In the nature of the case a commodity in such demand as salt had to 

 bear a disproportionate share of the public burdens. Cruel and in- 

 human methods of legal procedure were the order of the day, and those 

 who suffered from it did not themselves know any better way of attain- 

 ing the ends in view. It is greatly to the credit of the English people 

 that their jury system did much to mitigate the penalties to which many 

 a transgressor against the revenue laws as against other laws made 

 himself liable. Though juries could not change the statutes, they 



