e reports of the U. S. Treasury as to
"Imported Merchandise," etc., Oriental carpets and rugs have no separate
classification, but are included under the general heading of "Carpets
woven whole for rooms, and Oriental, Berlin, Aubusson, Axminster, and
other similar rugs." It is quite a mixed company, but Oriental weaves as
herein considered are at least distinguished as such, and differentiated
from carpeting by the yard. They have also the distinction, with the
others of their group, of paying a tax of ninety cents per square yard and
forty per cent ad valorem, as against from twenty-two to sixty cents per
square yard and the same forty per cent ad valorem for the various
Brussels, Wilton, and Axminster floor-coverings coming by the yard, and
not in one piece. And the duty on Oriental rugs, be it observed, is
measured by the square yard, and therefore no record is kept of the number
of pieces, or how many individual items of the four classes have been
imported.

Nevertheless, the statistics for the year ending June 30, 1902, show this
general result: The total value of that year's import of these "whole
carpets, Oriental, Berlin," etc., was a trifle below three million
dollars. Two and a half millions of this value came to New York with only
half a million left to divide between Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, San
Francisco, and other ports of entry. The supremacy of New York City as the
Oriental rug mart for this country is easily manifest, although it is not
so easy to estimate what proportion of the two and a half millions of
value was in Oriental rugs and what in modern carpets. One expert figures
the value of the Oriental rugs imported that year into New York as more
than half the total, or perhaps two millions. It is as fair an estimate as
may be had. Considerable as this amount may be, it seems much less than
might be expected. It may perhaps indicate the cheap grade and low quality
of most of our present acquisitions in this category.

The gathering of the rugs by the buyers, in the first instance, involves
great hardships, endurance, and even danger; and the deeper their
incursions into new and strange territory and unopened and unexplored
sources of supply, the more profitable their spoil, but the greater their
toil. Beluchistan, as previously suggested, would appear now to be one of
the remotest regions yet remaining to yield up a few new treasures to the
persevering buyer.

These rugs so gathered to the ce