THE FATE OF ICIODORUM. IQI 
made boots, you must furnish them for us. You 
ought to do it anyhow. This city owes us a living, 
and we came over here from Clermont to get it. 
We were told that the workingman in Issoire would 
have the octroi on his side, and would not have to 
work like a slave to keep soul and body together, 
as we had to do at Clermont. But it is the same 
old story here. We do all the work, and some- 
body else gets all the profits. Now we have to 
buy and pay for the boots we make ourselves. 
The cowhide in a pair of boots costs the capitalists 
but a franc, and we, the boot-makers, pay twenty 
francs for the boots when we have made them. 
The other nineteen francs are the product of labor, 
and ought to belong to us. Our boots should be 
furnished at a franc a pair.” 
So they held a mass-meeting in the café of the 
Lion d’Or, and resolved that the rights of man 
were not respected in Issoire. They sent a delega- 
tion to the mayor, asking that boots for the work- 
ingman be furnished at the expense of the town. 
This would be but justice, and moreover it was 
the only way to start anew the wheels of industry. 
Money should not be locked up in the city treas- 
ury. It should go from man to man, and this 
action was sure to set it going. 
Then the schoolmaster wrote a long letter to the 
Issoire “‘ Gazette,” and showed very clearly that 
this claim was on the whole a just one. Nobody 
understood the argument, but all applauded it 
because it looked very learned; and, moreover, its 
conclusions were in harmony with their previous 
opinions. The schoolmaster showed that, as boots 
