184 SCIENCE SKETCHES. 
perity of a town by preventing the people from 
sending their money away. It is a well-known fact 
that individuals become poor simply because they 
spend their money. So with cities. What is true 
of the individual is true of the community, itself 
but an aggregation of individuals. Nations, as well 
as individuals, grow rich by doing their own work. 
Commerce, as is well known, is a great drain on 
the resources of a town as of a nation. Now, if in 
some way we can keep the money of a town within 
its limits, the town cannot fail to grow rich. As 
Benjamin Franklin once observed, “ A penny saved 
is twopence earned.” The great problem in muni- 
cipal economics is this: How shall we keep the 
town’s money from going out of it? How shall we 
best discourage buying, — especially the buying of 
articles from dealers outside? 
To meet this problem, the wisdom of the fathers 
devised the octroi. 
In view of the prospective introduction of the 
octroi into America (and I trust that I am violating 
no confidence in saying that this is the real object 
of the present visit to Europe on the part of one of 
America’s foremost statesmen), it is worth while to 
examine carefully its nature and advantages. 
Years ago, before the octroi came to Issoire, the 
city was noted chiefly for the barter of farm prod- 
ucts. The farmers used to bring in grains, hides, 
cheese, and other produce, which they would ex- 
change for clothing, sugar, coffee, tobacco, and the 
various necessaries of existence. The merchants 
used to load the grain into wagons which were 
driven across the country to the city of Clermont. 
