ng
speculation. Last year our registered imports amounted in value to over
one billion dollars. The dutiable goods amounted to considerably more than
half this sum, and the duties collected aggregated no less than two
hundred and seventy-seven million dollars.

In the latter part of 1905 a farmer in Michigan sent in thirty dollars as
the duty which he should have paid on a horse driven across the Canadian
border from Manitoba a number of years ago. This was duly credited to the
Conscience Fund, and nearly a month later a second letter was received
from the same penitent farmer, saying that he had decided also to pay duty
on the harness (valued at seven dollars) which the horse wore and the
buggy (valued at ten dollars) it hauled on the occasion of its journey
across the border from Manitoba. In the second letter he enclosed six
dollars and sixty-five cents for the Conscience Fund.

When John G. Carlisle was Secretary of the Treasury he received the
following letter with forty dollars enclosed:

DEAR SIR:

Though I disapprove as heartily as you of the recent tariff
laws, I think it the duty of every honest man to declare
fully the value of articles subject to the same, as he can
only avoid doing so by perjuring himself. I did so when I
returned from Europe, with the exception of a few trifles,
which, if examined, would have involved the putting about
the contents of my trunk to the injury of my property. I
hope that you will use your influence to have the present
tariff laws changed. I hope this less on account of economic
ignorance which they display than because of the terrible
demoralizations which they have powerfully aided to bring
about.

The Shadow of the Great Hereafter.

From Pleasant Lake, North Dakota, came a registered letter which contained
ten dollars. An accompanying note was evidently in the handwriting of a
very old man. He added the pathetic postscript:

"There is a lot more due in the near future. All of us become honest as
we near the Great Hereafter. I need only sign my name as 'Conscience.'"

Collectors of customs throughout the United States, and particularly along
the Canadian border, frequently receive sums of money sent to them
anonymously, with the request that they be forwarded to the Conscience
Fund at Washington. Some of these officials state that passengers,
including fashionably dressed women, come hurriedly into the office of