428 
Editorial. 
/Am.  Joce.  Pharm. 
\    Sept  1,  1871. 
stamped.  Recently,  however,  the  Commissioner  of  Internal  Revenue  has  de- 
cided that  imported  perfumery  may  be  sold  in  the  original  or  unbroken  package, 
as  entered  at  the  Custom  House,  without  being  stamped,  but  when  this  original 
package  is  broken,  and  the  smaller  packages  are  taken  therefrom,  the  bottles 
contained  in  the  smaller  packages  must  be  stamped  before  they  are  sold  or 
offered  for  sale.  According  to  this  decision  the  stamping  will  have  to  be  done 
— as  a  rule — by  the  importer,  and  retailers  are,  henceforth,  precluded  from 
purchasing  perfumery  in  the  manufacturers'  original  packages,  because  they 
must  be  broken  by  the  purchaser  of  the  imported  cases  for  the  purpose  of 
stamping  each  bottle. 
We  regard  this  decision  as  utterly  erroneous,  and  not  in  accordance  with  the 
spirit  of  the  Internal  Revenue  law.  Only  such  packages  of  perfumery  can  be 
regarded  as  original  packages,  which  conform  to  the  style, in  which  the  manu- 
facturer packs  his  goods  for  the  convenience  of  the  dealers.  Such  original 
manufacturers'  packages  may  be  and  frequently  are  imported  together  with 
drugs  and  other  goods  in  the  same  cases,  and  such  cases  cannot  therefore  be 
regarded  as  original  packages  of  perfumery. 
A  few  months  ago,  Internal  Revenue  Assessors  and  Detectives  visited  a 
number  of  pharmacies  in  Philadelphia,  and  induced  the  proprietors  to  stamp 
their  shop  bottles  from  which  perfumery  and  toilet  articles  are  retailed,  equiva- 
lent to  the  stamp  duty  of  the  retail  value  of  their  contents.  We  now  find  in 
the  newspapers  the  following  decision  of  the  Commissioner  of  Internal  Reve- 
nue:  In  regard  to  stamping  a  barrel  or  gallon  bottle  of  Cologne  water  to 
retail  from,  the  Commissioner  says  the  law  does  not  authorize  such  a  practice. 
The  law  requires  the  stamp  to  be  affixed  to  the  bottle  or  other  enclosure  in 
which  the  article  is  sold  and  delivered,  even  though  the  bottle  or  enclosure 
may  be  furnished  by  the  purchaser." 
The  law  requires  perfumery  to  be  stamped  in  proportion  to  the  full  retail 
value  of  the  vessel  and  its  contents.  We  have  heard  of  some  wise  officers  who 
require  the  same  value  of  stamps,  even  if  the  bottle  or  vessel  be  furnished  by 
the  purchaser;  that  is  to  say,  supposing  the  purchaser  to  bring  a  fancy  bottle, 
worth  at  retail  three  dollars,  and  to  buy  five  cents'  worth  of  Cologne  water, 
they  would  have  the  seller  stamp  the  bottle  14  cents,  or,  in  other  words,  pay  to 
the  Government  14  cents  for  the  privilege  of  selling  5  cents'  worth  of  per- 
fumery. 
The  ridiculousness  of  such  a  demand  is  so  obvious  that  nothing  further  need 
be  said  about  it;  but  the  above  cases  show  how  vexatious  the  law  may  be  to 
the  honest  dealer,  and  how  little  the  officers  themselves  agree  in  their  interpre- 
tation of  it. 
Importation  of  Powdered  Drugs. — A  few  years  ago  a  lot  of  rhubarb  root 
was  rejected  at  the  New  York  Custom  House  as  unfit  for  medicinal  use. 
It  appears  that  it  was  reshipped  to  Europe,  powdered,  and  again  sent  to  this 
country.  It  is  well  known  how  difficult  it  is  to  examine  most  powdered  drugs 
and  establish  their  purity  by  chemical  assay  or  by  the  microscope,  and  it  is  a 
remarkable  fact  that  powdered  drugs  which  can  be  easily  tested,  particularly 
those  containing  alkaloids,  are  rarely  if  ever  imported,  while  those  the  nature 
