440 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



boots, was waiting outside, a big, burly fellow, with a sledge-bam- 

 mer fist and an unpleasant look in his eye. The mayor took one 

 glance at him, and saw that he was not to be trifled with. More- 

 over, this one case was not to end the difficulty. The road to 

 Clermont and the road across the mountains to Aurillac, the chief 

 town of the next department, Cantal, were black with the advanc- 

 ing hosts of workmen coming to share the privileges which Issoire 

 held out to the oppressed of every city. Through the windows of 

 the Hotel de Ville the mayor could see them coming, and he knew 

 that the demand of each one of them would be " boots." It was 

 not one pair of boots to be paid for, it was a thousand ! There 

 were boots enough in Issoire. The factories were never so pros- 

 perous, and the money they received from the city was kept in 

 rapid circulation. The grocers got some, the butchers some, a 

 good deal went to the landlady of the Golden Lion, and the wives 

 of the factory-owners and the councilmen bought diamond neck- 

 laces and bracelets to match the ear-rings which they had before. 



But this could not go on unless the city treasury could meet 

 the demands upon it. In the words of a celebrated economist, 

 " The mill can never grind again with the water that is past," and, 

 unless new water could be procured, grinding was over at Issoire. 

 The town must have money, or else the factories would be closed, 

 the supply of boots cease, and each citizen of Issoire would have 

 to keep the wolf from the door by his own unaided exertions. 



It was a great crisis, but such crises, " God's stern winnowers," 

 as the poet calls them, are the making of great men. And this 

 crisis made a great man of the mayor of Issoire, or rather it made 

 a background against which his greatness could be seen, I have 

 forgotten the mayor's name, and I am very sorry for it. It was a 

 French name and wholly unpronounceable to me, something like De 

 Rougeatre, or De Rousselieu ; but if ever the name of a mayor were 



" On Fame's eternal beadroll worthy to be filed," 

 it is his, and it is my constant regret that I can not file it there. 



And the mayor said : " All our prosperity is due to the action 

 of the octroi on a single article of necessity — namely, boots. This 

 is prosperity along a single line only, a one-sided development of 

 our industries, and from this comes our present embarrassment. 

 Put the octroi on everything, and you have prosperity along the 

 whole line. Some of these things we can produce at home, some 

 we can not. Those that we can not produce the people will have 

 somehow, and from these you can raise the money to pay for the 

 boots which Issoire recognizes as the just due of the toiling work- 

 ingman." Here the mayor wiped a tear from his eye, and raised 

 his voice a little, in the hojje that perchance some toiling working- 

 man might be listening outside, or taking his needful midday rest 

 at the Golden Lion, next door. 



