economics 



18833 The Fate of Iciodorum 



these paid their toll to the treasury as they went 

 through the gate. A sou let in five cabbage heads 

 or ten onions, twelve turnips, eight apples, or three 

 bunches of artichokes; other things being taxed 

 in proportion, the revenues needed to run the city 

 were thus collected from the farmer folk of neigh- 

 boring districts. The octroi accordingly serves as a 

 sort of protective tariff on a small scale, whereby 

 French and Italian towns generally attempt to 

 throw municipal expenses on outsiders. Direct 

 taxation of citizens is a barren expedient, and all 

 great financiers from Caesar to Napoleon gathered 

 in from foreigners what money they needed. 



I made some notes, satirical, I fear, on the opera- a satire 

 tion of the octroi. Five years later my wife Jessie *^ 

 urged me to work them up for the edification of my 

 fellow citizens. Under the title, therefore, of *'The 

 Octroi at Issoire" this system was discussed by me in 

 The Popular Science Monthly for 1888, the article 

 appearing later in book form as ''The Fate of 

 Iciodorum." My satire took the guise of a parable 

 likening tariff-protected America to Issoire, while 

 Clermont, metropolis of the department of Puy-de- 

 Dome in Auvergne, is to be identified as England. 

 Two general lessons were drawn: first, that history 

 repeats itself if it be real history — that is, made 

 up of causes and effects, not merely a succession of 

 unrelated incidents; second, that national wealth 

 is enhanced by taking money from the poor who 

 waste it (which is why they are poor) and putting 

 it into the hands of the rich and powerful who know 

 how to make it grow. 



This is a truism so obvious that one is astonished to hear 

 it questioned, although some maintain that the first purpose 



C 257 3 



