i8o POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



(i. e., in the form of United States bonds) for their payments. 

 Under such circumstances small manufacturers with a limited 

 capital were crushed, and the business of manufacturing concen- 

 trated in a very few firms, which raised the retail price of matches 

 to an extent considerably in excess of the amount of the tax. In 

 later years (1883), when it was proposed to repeal this tax, the sin- 

 gular spectacle was afforded of the larger manufacturers strenu- 

 ously exerting themselves to influence Congress to prevent the 

 repeal, and asking that they might continue to be taxed. Their 

 efforts were, however, unavailing. The tax was abolished, and 

 the retail price of matches immediately declined more than fifty 

 per centum i. e., from fifteen cents to six cents for six boxes. 



Many years ago the late Henry C. Carey characterized indirect 

 taxation in the following forcible and figurative language : " The 

 whole system of indirect taxation," he said, "is mere petty 

 larceny. It is an attempt to filch that which can not be openly 

 demanded. It is one of those ' inventions ' of man by which the 

 few are enabled to grow rich at the expense of the many, and is 

 therefore greatly favored by that class of men who prefer living 

 by the labor of others to living by their own. The man who 

 plunders a city is of the same species with the highway robber. 

 The one who imposes indirect taxes is of the same species with 

 the chevalier d'industrie. All belong to the genus of great men. 

 All are equally destitute of manly or generous feeling. The 

 plunderer of cities selects those which are weak and defenseless, 

 and the collector of indirect taxes selects the commodities used 

 by poor men who can not defend themselves; and where the 

 system most prevails, men are most weak and cheap and food 

 most dear." * (H. C. Carey, Past, Present, and Future, pp. 4G4, 

 465, Philadelphia, 1848.) 



* " So long as it (indirect taxation) shall be permitted to exist, depopulation, and the 

 system of large revenues, raised by means of indirect taxation, to be squandered by those 

 who live by managing the affairs of others, must continue. So long as it exists, the planter 

 and farmer must continue to give a large portion of their small product in exchange for a 

 small quantity of clothing. So long as it exists, every attempt at the establishment of 

 freedom of trade must be a failure. With its correction, every obstacle to the establish- 

 ment of perfect freedom will disappear, and the tariff will pass out of existence. The 

 interest of every farmer and planter, and of every laborer and mechanic, is directly con- 

 cerned in the adoption of a measure that shall be calculated to promptly produce the effect 

 desired i. e., repeal of indirect taxation but it is not more his interest than his duty. 

 So long as the present system shall continue, trade of every kind must be subject to violent 

 fluctuations which enable the few to enrich themselves at the expense of the many, and 

 enable gambling speculators to live in palaces and ride in coaches by aid of indirect taxa- 

 tion levied upon the hard-working mechanic and honest trader, ruined by changes in the 

 value of their property. It is, therefore, the bounden duty of every man desirous to pro- 

 mote the great cause of morality, justice, and of truth, to unite his efforts with those of his 

 neighbor for the early accomplishment of this great object." H. C. Carey, Past, Present, 

 and Future, pp. 471, 472, Philadelphia, 1848. 



