The Middle Period in the United States. 
135 
in amount. 1 The importance of the large cities is here again 
recognized by the fact, that a higher fee was collected for these 
licenses in the great towns than in small ones. 
C. THE DEVELOPMENT IN INSPECTION PEES. 
The system of inspection continued to be elaborated and en¬ 
larged in such a way that new articles were continually added 
to the list coming under this requirement. Furthermore, new 
and more complex schedules were made of the old inspection 
fees. Many of these early laws were designed to protect the 
consumer, and forbade the sale of uninspected articles. This 
provision was soon found to be too onerous to some producers, 
and as a result inspection laws were made applicable largely 
only to articles intended for export. 2 Sometimes, however, a 
few products, which were deemed especially liable to adultera¬ 
tion or deception as to quality, were in some states kept under 
compulsory inspection; as, for example, in Pennsylvania, flour 
intended for sale, 3 in South Carolina, turpentine. 
To understand fully the significance of these state export in¬ 
spection laws, it is necessary to bear in mind that the export 
trade had not become centralized in a few great ports as it was 
later on. Cheap transportation other than by water was not 
even dreamed of. Every state which had any seaboard at all, 
carried on its own export trade, instead of sending its products 
to New York or other great ports, as is customary at present. 
Each little harbor drained, as it were, the products of the ter¬ 
ritory surrounding it. It was not American pork and Ameri¬ 
can wheat that was quoted in European markets, but it was 
New York flour, Virginia tobacco, Carolina pitch, and so on; 
each state became in a sense responsible for the quality of its 
own goods. It is then not difficult to understand why each 
state laid so much stress on the inspection of its own products 
1 Laws , Penn., 1845, p. 532. 
2 Compulsory inspection, except of exports, was abolished in New York 
in 1845. Laws , Ch. 202, Par. 1. In North Carolina provisions, cotton, 
turpentine, tobacco, lumber, and the like, were required to be inspected 
before exportation. Laws , 1856, Ch. 27. 
3 All timber sold must be inspected. Laws , S. C., 1856, XII, 580. 
