rom fishing, or between their
superposed layers. An order prescribes one pound and a half to a barrel.
Another order prescribes the destruction annually of the natural salt
formed in certain cantons in Provence. Judges are prohibited from
moderating or reducing the penalties imposed in salt cases, under
penalty of accountability and of deposition.--I pass over quantities
of orders and prohibitions, existing by hundreds. This legislation
encompasses tax-payers like a net with a thousand meshes, while the
official who casts it is interested in finding them at fault. We see the
fisherman, accordingly, unpacking his barrel, the housewife seeking a
certificate for her hams, the exciseman inspecting the buffet, testing
the brine, peering into the salt-box and, if it is of good quality,
declaring it contraband because that of the ferme, the only legitimate
salt, is usually adulterated and mixed with plaster.

Meanwhile, other officials, those of the excise, descend into the
cellar. None are more formidable, nor who more eagerly seize on pretexts
for delinquency[5234]. "Let a citizen charitably bestow a bottle of
wine on a poor feeble creature and he is liable to prosecution and to
excessive penalties. . . . The poor invalid that may interest his curate
in the begging of a bottle of wine for him will undergo a trial, ruining
not alone the unfortunate man that obtains it, but again the benefactor
who gave it to him. This is not a fancied story." By virtue of the right
of deficient revenue the clerks may, at any hour, take an inventory of
wine on hand, even the stores of a vineyard proprietor, indicate what he
may consume, tax him for the rest and for the surplus quantity already
drunk, the ferme thus associating itself with the wine-producer and
claiming its portion of his production.--In a vine-yard at Epernay[5235]
on four casks of wine, the average product of one arpent, and worth six
hundred francs, it levies, at first, thirty francs, and then, after the
sale of the four casks, seventy five francs additionally. Naturally,
"the inhabitants resort to the shrewdest and best planned artifices
to escape" such potent rights. But the clerks are alert, watchful, and
well-informed, and they pounce down unexpectedly on every suspected
domicile; their instructions prescribe frequent inspections and exact
registries "enabling them to see at a glance the condition of the
cellar of each inhabitant."[5236]--The manufacturer having paid up,