THE FATE OF I CIO DO RUM. 20$ 



and lived on grasshoppers and gleanings, while 

 hers were fed on grain which had passed the octroi. 

 It seems that the schoolmaster, in making up the 

 octroi list, in arranging the 0's had neglected to 

 look for words beginning with oe, and so had 

 omitted the word oeuf, which is the French for 

 '* egg." So the Council was called together, a rate 

 for cenfs was agreed upon, and Widow Besoin's 

 Dominick hens were free from the pauper com- 

 petition of the chickens of Farmer Bois-rouge. 



But the action of the octroi was on the whole, 

 as I have said, extremely beneficial. It filled the 

 treasury again, and it stimulated a large number of 

 infant industries, which had previously been unable 

 to compete with established industries in surround- 

 ing towns, on account of the high prices of raw 

 materials, and especially of labor, at Issoire. It is 

 true that workman Jacques and some of the other 

 laborers complained that these high wages were high 

 in name only. In Clermont men worked for three 

 francs a day; but these three francs would buy 

 twelve yards of calico or ten pounds of sugar, while 

 the five francs received in Issoire would buy but 

 ten yards of calico or eight pounds of sugar. But 

 the schoolmaster wrote another letter to the 

 " Gazette," showing that the question of wages 

 was solved by an estimate of what the laborer 

 saved, not by what he could buy with his wages. 

 " Every workingman," said he, " as statistics show, 

 saves thirty per cent of his wages. In Clermont, 

 therefore, the laborer lays up one franc per day, 

 or three hundred francs per year. In Issoire he 

 lays up one franc fifty per day, or four hundred 



