216 SCIENCE SKETCHES. 
to-morrow, wearied the eye and the ear with their 
ceaseless monotony. It was a city in which the 
clashing of interests and the fluctuation of prices 
made every one anxious for the morrow’s sun to 
rise that he might see what would happen next. 
He spoke of the promising infant, the industry of 
boot-making, which had always stood in the fore- 
front of Issoire’s development. He touched lightly 
on the late labor difficulties, as a mere incident in 
the city’s progress, ‘a spark struck out from the 
clashing of great interests as from flint and steel.” 
“ Different directions may produce such,” said he, 
unconsciously quoting from an earlier economist; 
“nay, different velocities in the same direction.” 
Then he spoke of the value of the octroi to the 
workingman and of the charmed life he leads at 
Issoire. He repeated all the arguments drawn 
from the prices of boots and the prices of labor 
which the schoolmaster had written out for him, 
and everything went on beautifully till near the 
close, when the master-workman Jacques rose to 
ask a question. 
“ How is it,” said he, “if the lot of the working- 
man is so pleasant in Issoire, that there is not a 
single workingman from Issoire in one of the fac- 
tories in this city ? How is it that the mills are 
full of paupers and ‘rats’ from Clermont and 
Jonas? How is it that the census shows that 
Issoire is actually poorer to-day than she was ten 
years ago, that her pauper roll is ten times as 
large, and the only citizens who have grown rich 
are the city officers and the members of Issoire’s 
iniquitous Equitable Confidence Societies? If the 
