_ 2992. on revenue laws. 239 
paid on an equal quantity of goods, which would be 
imported by the fair traders if no such sales were 
made. The hurting of the iair trader, is, in conse- 
quence of these sales, perhaps no lcfs important to 
the community at large, than the lofs sustained by 
the public revenue. It would then bea great point 
gained, if the forfeited goods could be abstracted en- 
tirely from the markets. Government being sen- 
sible of that, attempted to bring it about a few years 
ago, by ordaining that all the spirits so circumstanced 
thould be destroyed ; and the same principle is at 
present, in part, kept in action, by the practice of 
burning all the condemned tobacco, provided a sum, 
equal to the duty, one fhilling and threepence per 
pound, is not offered for it at the Custom-house or 
Excise sales. Both of these practices are evident 
absurdities; the former was soon found to be so; 
_ but the eyes of the legislature are not yet opened 
: with regard to the latter. Tobacco, although not 
worth one fhilling and threepence per pound, would 
perhaps be worth one fhilling; and if tobacco, worth 
fifteenpence here, be worth five farthings in Holland, 
or any other country, such of that article as is worth | 
here one fhilling, will bring there nearly one penny. 
Why not, therefore, export it, and get that penny, or 
whatever can be got for it, rather than fumigate 
whole towns with it, as is frequently done at pre. 
sent*? 
* In Leith, we are often for days together, under almost unsufferable 
torment from the smoke of tobacco, which is burned in a kiln kept for 
the purpose, in the very ceatre of the town. A stranger wou!d think it 
was to fumigate away the plague, or some such malady. How many are 
there, that would give some hundred: yearly, for leave to carry it @ Am- 
pterdam or any wh.cre clse for sale ? 
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