THE OCTROI AT IS SCIRE. 453 



full of paupers and ' rats ' from Clermont and Jonas ? How is it 

 that the census shows that Issoire is actually poorer to-day than 

 she was ten years ago, that her pauj)er roll is ten times as large, 

 and the only citizens who have grown rich are the city officers and 

 the members of Issoire's iniquitous Equitable Confidence Socie- 

 ties ? If the octroi is to benefit the laborers of Issoire, why don't 

 you put it on the outside fellows who swarm in Igsoire, and not on 

 the Issoire laborers' food and clothing ? It seems to me, sir, that 

 when a city begins to fix things to help one set of men and then 

 another, rather than to consider the common good of all, it is on 

 dangerous ground. Once started on this sort of thing, everybody 

 clamors for his share. Every man too lazy to work, and every 

 man whose business does not pay, seems to think that the rest of 

 the town owe him a living." 



Warming up with the subject, he continued : 



" Take this millstone business of yours, for example. It is all 

 folly to talk of the wealth in your stone-quarries, if you have to 

 hire their owners to work them. If we can buy millstones in 

 Clermont for less than it costs to cut them in Issoire, it is money 

 in our pockets to leave them in the ground. If any line of busi- 

 ness needs to be constantly propped up, and can not live except at 

 the expense of its neighbors, it is no industry at all. It is a beg- 

 gary. And this octroi of yours has made a beggar or a brigand 

 of every industry in Issoire ! " 



But the mayor waved his hand and smiled, and said that some 

 men were never satisfied. They would grumble about the golden 

 pavements of the New Jerusalem, if they could not turn them into 

 legal tender. Then he referred to a conspiracy among men sub- 

 orned by Clermont gold, to flood the streets of Issoire with cheap 

 bread and meat and potatoes and clothing. He asked all who 

 wanted to be slaves to Clermont to rise and be counted. He 

 showed that, of all people on earth, the people of France were the 

 happiest; of all people in France, those of Issoire were most 

 favored ; and of those in Issoire, the best of all were the working- 

 men, the especial guardians of the Issoire idea. 



Meanwhile the extension of the octroi to 3,873 articles had 

 greatly increased the wealth of the city, and the city treasurer's 

 strong-box was so full that he had to make a second one, and to 

 hire three trusty Clermont men to watch it day and night, and 

 then three men from Jonas to watch the first three. What should 

 be done with the money to keep it in circulation, for, if it remained 

 locked up, the wheels of industry would soon begin to creak, and 

 creaking is a sign that wheels need oiling ? 



The mayor had proposed to divide it among the several Equi- 

 table • Confidence Societies, in order to encourage industry, and 

 thus enable these companies to raise, still higher the high wages 



