OIL, RESIN, ALCOHOL, AND GENERALLY OF EVERY THING USED FOR
LIGHTS.

_To the Honorable the Members of the Chamber of Deputies:_

"GENTLEMEN,--You are in the right way: you reject abstract theories;
abundance, cheapness, concerns you little. You are entirely occupied
with the interest of the producer, whom you are anxious to free from
foreign competition. In a word, you wish to secure the _national market_
to _national labor_.

"We come now to offer you an admirable opportunity for the application
of your----what shall we say? your theory? no, nothing is more
deceiving than theory;--your doctrine? your system? your principle? But
you do not like doctrines; you hold systems in horror; and, as for
principles, you declare that there are no such things in political
economy. We will say then, your practice; your practice without theory,
and without principle.

"We are subjected to the intolerable competition of a foreign rival, who
enjoys, it would seem, such superior facilities for the production of
light, that he is enabled to _inundate_ our _national market_ at so
exceedingly reduced a price, that, the moment he makes his appearance,
he draws off all custom from us; and thus an important branch of French
industry, with all its innumerable ramifications, is suddenly reduced to
a state of complete stagnation. This rival, who is no other than the
sun, carries on so bitter a war against us, that we have every reason to
believe that he has been excited to this course by our perfidious
neighbor England. (Good diplomacy this, for the present time!) In this
belief we are confirmed by the fact that in all his transactions with
this proud island, he is much more moderate and careful than with us.

"Our petition is, that it would please your honorable body to pass a law
whereby shall be directed the shutting up of all windows, dormers,
sky-lights, shutters, curtains, vasistas, oeil-de-boeufs, in a word, all
openings, holes, chinks and fissures through which the light of the sun
is used to penetrate into our dwellings, to the prejudice of the
profitable manufactures which we flatter ourselves we have been enabled
to bestow upon the country; which country cannot, therefore, without
ingratitude, leave us now to struggle unprotected through so unequal a
contest.

"We pray your honorable body not to mistake our petition for a satire,
nor to repulse us without at least hearing the reasons which we have to
advance in its favor.