THE FATE OF 1C TO DO RUM. 1 8$ 



Here the grain was exchanged for clothing, food, 

 and all manner of necessaries and luxuries which 

 were made in Clermont, or which had been brought 

 thither from the great city of Lyons. There were 

 long processions of these wagons, and all through 

 the autumn and winter they went in and out. And 

 the Issoire people were very proud of them ; for 

 neither coming nor going were they empty, and the 

 teamsters of Issoire were the most skilful in the 

 whole basin of the Loire. 



But the mayor of the city and other thoughtful 

 people saw cause for shame rather than for pride 

 in the condition of Issoire's industries. It was 

 ruinous thus steadily to carry away the wealth of 

 the land and to exchange it for perishable articles. 

 When a wagon-load of boots, for example, had 

 been all worn out, then the boots were gone. The 

 money that had been paid for them was gone, and 

 so far as Issoire was concerned, it was as much 

 lost as if money and boots had been sunk in the 

 bottom of the sea. The money that was paid out, 

 I say. Not so with the money that was paid in. 

 If those boots had been bought in Issoire, the money 

 that they cost would still be in town, still be in circu- 

 lation, and would go from one to another in the way 

 that money is meant to go. This drain must be 

 stopped, and the octroi could stop it. So it was 

 enacted by the Common Council of Issoire that 

 " whosoever brings a pair of new boots into Issoire 

 shall be compelled to pay ten francs," which was 

 the cost of a pair of boots at Clermont. The pur- 

 pose of this order was not to raise money, but to 

 have boots made at Issoire, that the wearing out of 



