lace is prohibited altogether in France. The
same kind of lace, made in France on the
same machines, is allowed to come into
England without the payment of a farthing
duty. It is a singular fact that this French
lace (a considerable portion of which goes to
England, either there to be consumed or to be
re-exported) is actually made from English
cotton upon which the French government
charges an import duty of from fifteen to
fifty per cent. on its value. The lace, returned
in its new shape to England, becomes an
object of merchandise, of course with a profit
to the vendors through whose hands it passes.
England reaps the advantage of being made
the market for foreign goods. American and
other buyers are saved taking a journey to
France; they find what they want in London,
and they spend their money there, instead of
in Paris. England gains by her liberality;
France loses by her illiberality. "There is
that scattereth and yet increaseth; and there
is that withholdeth more than is meet, but
it tendeth to poverty."

A page of the Tarif now stares me in the
face, in which the word prohibited, with a
capital P, assumes all the forms, singular,
plural, masculine, and feminine, of which
French grammar renders it capable. Cutlery,
arms of war; munitions of war, comprising
gunpowder, capsules, and projectiles; metal
works in cast-iron, plate-iron, wrought-iron,
tinned-iron, and steel, in copper, tin, or zinc,
and other metals not denominated, are prohibés
or prohibées, according to their gender.
A few slight exceptions are made (amongst
them, armes de commerce and leaden wares),
but so heavily encumbered with impediments
as scarcely to suffer them to pass. Tools,
wire-cloth, needles, and hooks, are dressed up
with figures that render them frightful in an
importer's eyes. Hatred to cold iron is
evinced throughout in several ingenious ways.
Thus, empty barrels, containing a hectolitre,
pay twenty-five centimes each, if hooped with
wood; the same casks pay two francs twenty
centimes if hooped with iron. On anchors
and iron cables the duty is from fifteen to
upwards of forty francs the hundred kilos
Umbrellas and parasols pay from seventy-five
centimes to two francs each, the difference
depending on the material and not on
the size. Carriages on springs or lined and
painted are absolutely prohibited; agricultural
carriages, waggons, and tumbrils may
come in for fifteen per cent, on their value
Be it remembered that the value of all new
things is estimated on a very different principle
to that of old things; with the latter
the officials may be yielding and good-natured.
They often are. With the former, they dare
not; everything is screwed up to the highest
pitch; and they are not seldom incredulous
when the true cost-price of goods in England
is stated. India-rubber articles are taxed at
from twenty to upwards of two hundred and
twelve francs the hundred kilos.

The French Tarif performs a work of
supererogation, by taxing heavily many
articles in which the people themselves excel,
and which they are much more likely to
export than to import. It is as if Newcastle
were to petition for a crushing protective
duty on coals. Artificial flowers, and other
details of fashionable adornment, to enter
France, must pay twelve per cent, on their
value. Wooden shoes (untrimmed with fur)
pay from twelve to upwards of thirteen
francs, and from twenty-five to upwards of
twenty-seven francs the hundred kilos weight,
according as they are common or painted
and varnished. Mercury is mulcted either
in one or two hundred francs the kilo, the
amount depending on whether it is common,
or fine. Buttons—listen, Birmingham, and
tremble—of all kinds, whether silk, cotton,
wool, metal, or mixed, are smitten with the
same heavy measure of exclusion.

French duties on musical instruments are
droll, being severe on domestic and devotional
harmony, but lax towards the means of outdoor
and uproarious performances. Fifes,
flutes, and pipes (galoubets), pay the odd sum
of sixty-three centimes each; flutes, kits, and
triangles, seventy-five centimes; citterns,
mandolines, psalteries, lutes, drums, tambourines,
kettle-drums, dulcimers, and cymbals
(the pair), one franc fifty centimes;
altos, viols, violins, bassoons, guitars and
lyres, bird-organs, horns, serpents, bugles,
trumpets, and trombones, pay three francs
each. Clarinettes and hautbois are admitted
for four francs; simple hurdy-gurdies are
charged five francs each. Basses, counter-basses,
chapeaux-chinois or Chinese hats
(triangular pieces of brass on a pole, garnished
with little bells), and double-drums,
rise to the admission ticket of seven francs
fifty centimes. Spinnets (surely a retrospective
levy), harmonicas, organised hurdy-gurdies,
and portable organs, mount to the
impost of eighteen francs. A harp pays six-and-thirty
francs. Square piano-fortes, pay
three hundred francs each. Cabinet, cottage,
or grand, suffer the heavy infliction of four
hundred francs. Of course, nobody in France
ever puts money into the Government pocket
by paying a duty of twelve pounds sterling
on a foreign piano. A usable French one
can be bought for the money. In the very
frequent case of English families resident in
France, who get over their own furniture
from home, an English piano, which has been
used and bears marks of usage (an indispensable
condition), is admitted on the
same terms as worn furniture, namely, the
payment of fifteen per cent, on its present
value (not on the value of its original cost),
besides the additional supplementary charges.
For the duties here given are what may
be called the net duties: there are tenths
over and above, sometimes two-tenths over
and above, to pay, besides stamps and
droits, which swell the amount considerably.