The Early Period in the United States. 123 
There is perhaps no body of legislation which so regularly 
affects the economic conditions of the time and locality as the 
early laws prescribing regulations involving fee payments. Uni¬ 
formity in legislation was not aimed at in that day. The per¬ 
iod may most appropriately be called the “Era of special legis¬ 
lation. ” Each individual ferry and toll bridge had a separate 
and distinct tariff of fees prescribed by the legislature. The 
pilots in one port or river were granted one scale of fees, while 
those in a different harbor were given another schedule. The in¬ 
spection fees were at times made high or low according to the 
character and location of the inspection office. General laws, es¬ 
tablishing fees or charges of various kinds, came later. Even the 
court fees were at times made higher in one district than in an¬ 
other. The fee-regulations of the Federal Government had the 
same characteristics. One schedule was applied to one port, and a 
different one to another. The marshals of some localities were 
allowed to make certain charges, while in others different rates 
were fixed, because of the differences in population and econo¬ 
mic conditions. 
B. SOME NEW LICENSE I EES. 
One state after another resorted to the licensing of lotteries 
and sometimes even to state management of them. 1 Fees were 
also charged for permission to sell lottery tickets. In the same 
way we find the New York legislature in 1802 making a pro¬ 
vision for licensing the occupation of peddlers, 2 which up to 
that time had been a forbidden pursuit; while the southern 
states had, from the earliest colonial period, not only licensed 
and regulated hawkers and peddlers, but even derived consid¬ 
erable revenue from this source. Also the licenses to maintain 
billiard tables were required very early in the South, while in 
several New England states that privilege was not granted till 
the beginning of this century. In all the states, however, such 
licenses were granted directly by some commonwealth official, 
and the fee paid therefor was for the use of the state, and not 
^cMaster, History of the American People , I, 588. 
2 Same provision in Mass. Laws , 1799,1, 243. 
