204 SCIENCE SKETCHES. 



to buy their home products in another city, to pay 

 carnage both ways, and to pay the octroi at the 

 city gates, than it was to send across the street in 

 Issoire for the same article. Freedom from com- 

 petition at Issoire enabled the quarry-owners to 

 fix their own prices at home, and thus to broaden 

 the slender margin of profits which came from out- 

 side trade. This peculiar condition reached its 

 climax when one of Beltran's wagons from Cler- 

 mont left Issoire with a load of millstones, while, 

 next day, the same wagon, without unloading, car- 

 ried the same millstones back to be used in the 

 mills of the Issoire General Company of Flour and 

 Meal ! The schoolmaster was ecstatic over the 

 stimulus thus given to several industries at once. 

 It was like killing many birds with one stone. 

 But the Issoire Association for the Home Produc- 

 tion of Millstones was not satisfied with Clermont' 

 competition, even in this peculiar form, and an 

 increase in the octroi soon put further importations 

 out of the question. 



There were also some curious omissions in the 

 list, in spite of its length and complexity. An old 

 woman, Widow Besoin, who lived near the Cantal 

 gate, had five speckled Dominick hens, of which 

 she was very fond. These hens were to her a 

 source of profit as well as pleasure. She came to 

 the mayor with the complaint that her neighbor, 

 Farmer Bois-rouge, who lived just outside the city 

 gate, brought in the eggs of his chickens free, and 

 sold them at prices far below those she was com- 

 pelled to charge for the eggs of her hens. The 

 Bois-rouge chickens roamed over the whole farm 



