194 SCIENCE SKETCHES. 
stern winnowers,” as the poet calls them, are the 
making of great men. And this crisis made a 
great man of the mayor of Issoire, or rather it 
made a background against which his greatness 
could beseen. I have forgotten the mayor’s name, 
and I am very sorry for it. It was a French name 
and wholly unpronounceable to me, something like 
De Roncevalle or De Rousselieu; but if ever the 
name of a mayor were 
“On Fame’s eternal beadroll worthy to be filed,” 
it is his, and it is my constant regret that I cannot 
file it there. 
And the mayor said: “All our prosperity is due 
to the action of the octroi on a single article of 
necessity, — namely, boots. This is prosperity along 
a single line only, a one-sided development of our 
industries, and from this comes our present embar- 
rassment. Put the octroi on everything, and you 
have prosperity along the whole line. Some of 
these things we can produce at home, some we can- 
not. Those that we cannot produce the people 
will have somehow, and from these you can raise 
the money to pay for the boots which Issoire recog- 
nizes as the just due of the toiling workingman.” 
Here the mayor wiped a tear from his eye, and 
raised his voice a little, in the hope that perchance 
some toiling workingman might be listening out- 
side, or taking his needful midday rest at the Golden 
Lion, next door. 
“On the tea, coffee, pepper, brass, tin, dia- 
monds” (here the Common Council heaved a 
sigh), “and other articles which Issoire cannot 
