220 SCIENCE SKETCHES. 
mont merchant care whether we pay him ten 
francs for a pair of boots outside the city gates, or 
twenty francs inside, after he has paid ten francs 
toll? It is all the same to him. He loses nothing 
either way, except that our ridiculous laws have 
lost him a good customer for his woollen goods, 
and we have lost a good customer for our wines 
and wheat. If I can save ten francs by buying my 
boots at Clermont, have I not a right to save it, 
and whose business is it if I do? The octroi is 
putting into the city treasury every year fifty thou- 
sand francs more than the city has any honest use 
for, and the whole town will go into bankruptcy if 
this goes on for three years more. There isn’t 
money enough in the city to keep up this surplus. 
The money cannot get out of the treasury unless 
some one steals it out and puts it into circulation; 
and, if I understand you, gentlemen, this is just 
what you propose to do.” 
This speech was the sensation of the day. It 
was spoken with a blunt earnestness such as well- 
meaning but ignorant men are often found to 
possess. Its sophistries were not at first apparent, 
for the very reason that the speaker himself did 
not know them to be sophistries. 
It was printed next morning in the Issoire 
“Etoile,” and it made many converts among those 
who were unable to expose its errors. The land- 
lord of the Hétel de la Poste indorsed it, because 
the patronage of that excellent hostelry had 
greatly declined since the cessation of the barter 
with Clermont. Some of the manufacturers favored 
it, for they were looking for wider outlets for their 
