628 



CUSTOMS DUTIES 



CUTHBERT 



fluently accomplished in an easier method for the 

 importer, by allowing him to ' bond ' the goods in 

 the government warehouses until the duty was 

 paid, or the conditions which dispensed with it 

 fulfilled. An ordinary importer was also allowed 

 to ' bond ' his goods, instead of being compelled, as 

 in the old times, to pay duty on arrival of the 

 vessel whether he had sold his cargo or not. See 

 BONDED WAREHOUSES. 



In the year 1825 the laws of the British customs 

 were consolidated into some half-dozen statutes. It 

 will give a conception of the confused and cumber- 

 some condition into which the system had merged, 

 to note that the number of acts repealed on the 

 occasion of the consolidation was 443, and it was 

 afterwards discovered that several had been 

 omitted. There was still a long list of customs 

 duties ; but the free-trade legislation of 1846 cleared 

 away a great mass of this burden on the commerce 

 of the country, and there has been steady abbrevia- 

 tion of the list of duties or Tariff (q.v.). One by 

 one, articles of food have been exempted ; and 

 nearly the whole customs revenue is now derived 

 from spirits, wine, tobacco, tea, coffee, and dried 

 fruits. The tendency has for some time been to 

 concentrate the customs duties on a few articles, 

 and yet they supply an enormous amount of 

 revenue. The British revenue for the year ending 

 31st March 1895 was 94,684,000, and to this 

 amount the customs contributed 20,115,000. Down 

 to 1845 the tariff included some 1200 articles. 



The defects which, according to the doctrines 

 now prevalent in Great Britain, are to be avoided 

 in a code of customs, are 1. The prohibition or 

 discouragement of the importation of useful com- 

 modities ; 2. Encouragement to the smuggler ; and 

 3. Loss of revenue by raising the duty to the 

 height which discourages importation. Under the 

 first head, see CORN LAWS, and FREE TRADE. The 

 second is connected with the view that on stimu- 

 lants the duty cannot be too high, even though it 

 should greatly impede their importation : but on 

 the other hand, if the smuggling trade be en- 

 couraged, the stimulant is not only obtained with- 

 out any contribution to the revenue, but the 

 people become demoralised and trained to crime. 

 Under the third head a memorable example was 

 furnished by the old sugar-duties of France, which 

 were so high that the native agriculturists could 

 make su^ar from beet-root cheaper than the duty- 

 paid foreign sugar. 



The collection and general management of British 

 customs duties is under one great central depart- 

 ment of the government in London. The office of 

 receiver-general was in 1871 united with that of the 

 comptroller-general, and there is a fourfold division 

 into the paymaster's, examiner's, accountant's, and 

 auditor's branches. The annual cost of collecting 

 the customs dues and managing the necessary 

 establishments is about 952,000, although the 

 tariff contains now only twenty dutiable imports. 



In the United States, the number of dutiable 

 articles is large. Of the total imports the dutiable 

 have nearly double the value of the free goods. 

 In 1890-95 the total imports had" a value of from 

 $655,000,000 to $870,000,000 ; and in the years of 

 largest imports the customs duties reach a value of 

 $200,000,000, being by far the largest item in the 

 total national revenue say, from $300,000,000 to 

 $400,000,000. The very large surplus from customs 

 has led to keen debate! See also TAX, EXCISE. 



CUSTOM HOUSE (Fr. douane, Ger. Zollamt), 

 the office at a seaport or frontier where the customs 

 duties are paid, vessels entered and cleared, &c. 

 In England the custom-house officer has the right 

 of personal search only when he has good cause to 

 suspect that contraband goods are concealed about 

 the person. See SMUGGLING. 



CllStOS Rotllloriim (Lat., 'keeper of the 

 rotuli or rolls ' ) is the person appointed by the 

 crown to keep the records of the county sessions. 

 The office is an ancient one, and can only be held 

 by a justice of peace. In fact it is usually held by 

 the lord-lieutenant. In practice the rolls are kept 

 by the clerk of the peace, an officer appointed 6y 

 the Gustos Rotulorum. 



Custozza, a village 10 miles SW. of Verona, 

 where the Italians have twice been utterly defeated 

 by the Austrians. On 23d 25th July 1848 Charles 

 Albert was routed after severe fighting by Radetzky 

 with a smaller force, and forced to retreat behind the 

 Mincio; and on 24th June 1866, Victor Emmanuel 

 with 130,000 men was defeated by the Archduke 

 Albert with 75,000 men. 



< iist rin. See KUSTRIN. 



Cutcll (Kachchh], a protected principality under 

 the government of Bombay, stretches along the Gulf 

 of Cutch and the Indian Ocean between Gujarat and 

 Sind. Excluding the Rann of Cutch, it is 160 miles 

 long from E. to W. , and 30 to 70 broad from N. to S. 

 The state, exclusive of the Rann, consists of 6500 

 so. m., is the belt on the seashore, touching Sind, 

 of which it may be regarded as a physical continua- 

 tion, on the north-west, and being separated by a 

 detached portion of the Rann from Gujarat on the 

 south-east. While the southern edge of this belt 

 is merely a sandy desert, the northern section, 

 traversed lengthwise by two parallel ranges of hills, 

 presents, amid much sterility, many fertile tracts, 

 which yield cotton, rice, &c., and feed a large stock 

 of horses, kine, buffaloes, and camels. The grand 

 defect of the country is the scarcity of water. The 

 mineral productions are coal, iron, and alum. The 

 traces of volcanic action are numerous, and earth- 

 quakes also have recently occurred, as in 1819, 

 1844, 1845, 1864; that of 1819, besides shaking 

 every fortified city to its foundations, and destroy- 

 ing many hundred lives, changed the level of part 

 of the Rann. The population of the state, accord- 

 ing to the census of 1891, was 558,415, being 86 

 individuals to a square mile. The ruler is styled 

 the Rao ; and the feudatory chieftains under him 

 are about 200. The capital is Bhiij. 



The Rann or Rnnn of Cutch subdivided into 

 two parts, the smaller, of nearly 2000 sq. m., on the 

 east, and the larger, of 7000 sq. m., on the north 

 is a desert, being mainly caked, hard ground 

 during the dry season, and then in turn a sort of 

 shallow lake formed by the heavy rains and pent- 

 up tides of the south-west monsoon. It is supposed 

 to have been originally a permanent inlet of the 

 ocean, and to have had its level raised by some 

 such convulsion of nature as that which marked 

 the year 1819. The periodical disappearance of the 

 waters leaves behind it one continuous crust of salt. 

 This dreary waste has a few elevated spots on 

 which a little vegetation grows. Herds of wild 

 asses and clouds of flies are its only inhabitants. 

 The sea is at present advancing into the little 

 Rann year by year. For the substance called 

 Cutch, see CATECHU. 



Cuthbert, ST, OF DURHAM, was one of the three 

 great saints of England in the middle ages, the 

 other two being St Edmund of Edmundsbury, and 

 St Thomas-a-Becket of Canterbury. St Cuthbert 

 was born about 635. A legend, which was long 

 generally believed, tells that he was born in Ire- 

 land, and drew his lineage from one of the petty 

 kings of that country ; but another tradition fixes 

 his birth in what is now Berwickshire. When the 

 light of record first falls upon him, he was a shep- 

 herd boy in the kingdom of Northumbria, which 

 then stretched northwards to the Forth. In 651, 

 while watching his flock by night on the heights of 

 Lauderdale, he believed that he saw the heavens 



