It was the first of his visits to the place perhaps;
and, unhappily, it would not be the
last.

AN ANCIENT TARIFF.

MERCHANTS and traders must, I think,
have been dreadfully confused in the super-excellent
old days of restrictive Customs' duty,
when a tariff was as uneven as a shrew's
temper, and on the whole as hard upon its
victims, and as unaccountable in all its whims
and changes. Two great financiers, one following
another's lead, have in our own days
done Petruchio's work on Mistress Tariff so
effectively, that one more bridegroom will
reduce her wholly, perhaps, to the laws of
reason. It is dreadful to think of how it was
with her, two hundred years ago. Then, the
space between the Tower and London Bridge,
still occupied by what are called the legal
quays, was the whole space appropriated to
the lading and unlading of goods. "Certaine
orders, &c., for the guidance of merchants and
officers of the crown," set forth that "The
marchants trading into the Port of London
have free libertie to lade and unlade their
goods at any the lawfull keyes and places
of shipping and landing goods between the
Tower of London and London Bridge." This
order is from a book dated sixteen hundred
and forty-two, setting forth the "Subsidie
granted to the king of tonnage, poundage, and
other summes of money payable upon Marchandize
imported and exported, according to
a Book of Rates agreed unto by the honourable
House of Commons, and" says the title
of the book, "hereunto annexed." A peep
into this book of rates gives a full view of
Madame Tariff in her tantrums.

Tariff meddled in the first place with two
hundred and ninety drugs; not many more
were to be found in shops. Some of those
were of an edifying kind;—such as Scorpions,
paying duty by the piece, Oil of Scorpions,
Crab's eyes, Pig's bread, Aspalathus and Gum
Taccamabaccæ. I dare say the last was good
for something, its name sounds tremendously
powerful.

What enlightened nation in those days of
ignorance sent Alphabets to England? and
why did the spiteful tariff tax them at five
shillings "the set containing twenty-foure,"
treating A, B, C like dominoes, and making
them pay more than twopence a-piece as
imported articles? Was there ever a. trade
in contraband letters, and were there people
in those days whose very handwritings were
smuggled?

Babies were let in easily: at thirteen and
four-pence for the gross of twelve dozen, so
that four-and-twenty babies paid less duty
than an alphabet of four-and-twenty letters.
There was, however, a somewhat restrictive
duty upon babies' heads; they were not admitted
under ten shillings the dozen. It may
be proper to explain that the babies were such
children's babies as are brought now-a-days to
our bazaars from fairy-land; though not, I
suppose, so transcendantly beautiful, nor so
clear in their complexions; for the babies' or
puppets' heads paying tenpence a-piece duty
were things of earth, that is to say, earthen.

Babies bring with them thoughts of caps.
The duty charged on children's caps was then
a pound a dozen, and on the mature "double
or cockared caps," two pounds eight shillings.
Satin or velvet nightcaps—horrible things—
three pounds a dozen. There was a heavy
duty, too, levied on gloves; gloves silk knit
were fined two pounds the dozen; and gloves
of "Canary, Millen, Venice or French,
wrought with gold or silver," four pounds the
dozen pair.

Another bit of polite hand-furniture, the
hawk, had of course duty to pay. Upon a
goshawk the tariff levied three pounds six
and eightpence, upon a falcon four pounds,
and upon a ger-falcon four pounds ten, and
so on, every hawk being taxed according to
its kind. There being some supposed connexion
existing between a hawk and a hand-saw,
I come next very naturally to metal
work. The duty paid by imported armour
was not excessive. On a plain morion five
shillings, on an engraved morion twice as
much, upon a cuirass or "curat" twelve and
sixpence, and a pound on a complete corselet.

Feminine daggers, pins, were freely imported;
and the duty payable was thirty
shillings for twelve thousand of them. Ladies'
silk ribbon was four pounds the pound, and
silk stockings were taxed—by a tariff envious
of all grace and beauty, horrible to relate—
at the rate of four pounds the pair.

Ladies and gentlemen, and the public generally,
were however much better off in one
respect than we are now; so far as tariff is
concerned. There was no more than a reasonable
duty upon foreign wines. French wines
paid three pounds the ton in every port but
London; where they paid thirty shillings
more. Sack paid by the pipe thirty shillings
everywhere; but in London fifteen shillings
more, and so forth. There was a favour
shown to British importers. Merchant
strangers bringing wine to England paid
thirty shillings a ton extra for the privilege,
beside Southampton dues upon Levantine
wines, and upon all wines the  antient duty
of butlerage," kept up out of respect to its
antiquity.

The bad habit of making diflferences between
ourselves and our neighbours is now
gradually falling out of favour. The tariff
of those days let in the tobacco of our own
plantations at about the same duty that
it now pays; but prohibited foreign tobacco
by a duty of three pounds sterling on the
pound weight. The tariff also dreaded loss of
warmth and exercise. It was a fearful thing
for any one to send out of the country coals
or horses. Sea coals paid an export duty on
the chaldron by Newcastle measure of eleven