206 SCIENCE SKETCHES. 
and fifty francs per year, — a difference of one-half 
in favor of the workman at Issoire as compared 
with the pauper labor of Clermont.” 
The workman Jacques read this aloud in the bar- 
room of the Lion d’Or, and pondered over it a 
good deal, for the logic was irrefutable; and yet 
after all these years he had not four hundred and 
fifty francs which he could call his own. 
The mayor made a speech to the workingmen, 
congratulating them on his re-election, and assuring 
them that “ for them and for them alone the octroi 
was brought to Issoire. It was the pride of Issoire 
that its workingmen were princes and not paupers. 
If they paid high prices for articles of necessity, 
it was only that they might get higher prices in 
return. You sell more than you buy, and what 
you sell, the strength of your own right arms, costs 
you nothing, and, when it is sold, is as much yours 
as it was before. It is God’s bounty to the work- 
ingman. If these industries which the octroi has 
built up around you are left unprotected, you too 
would be left without defence. In the natural com- 
petition of trade, the rich grow richer and the poor 
poorer. Without the octroi we should behold here 
as at Clermont the spectacle of the chariot-wheels 
of Dives throwing dust into the eyes of Lazarus. 
But here in Issoire Lazarus is, so to speak, already 
in Abraham’s bosom. The workingmen of Issoire 
have no truer friend than Issoire’s mayor, and to 
cherish their interests is the dream by day and 
by night of Issoire’s Common Council.” 
But we must return to the boot-trade, on which 
the octroi was first established. The history of that 
