The fate of Iciodorum Author:David Starr Jordan Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III AN IMPROVEMENT BUT the Mayor of the city, and other thoughtful people, saw cause for shame rather than for pride in the condition of Issoire's in... more »dustries. It was ruinous thus steadily to carry away the wealth of the land and to exchange it for perishable articles. When a wagon-load of boots, for example, had been all worn out, then the boots were gone. The money that had been paid for them was gone, and so far as Issoire was concerned, it was as much lost as if money and boots had been sunk in the bottom of the sea. The money that was paid out, I say. Not so with the money that was paid in. If those boots had been bought in Issoire, the money theycost would still be in town, still be in circulation, and would go from one to another, from hand to hand, from pocket to pocket, in the way that money is meant to go. This drain must be stopped, and the Octroi could stop it. So it was enacted by the Common Council of Issoire that " whosoever brings a pair of new boots into Issoire shall be compelled to pay ten francs," which was the cost of a pair of boots at Clermont. The purpose of this order was not to raise money, but to have boots made in Issoire, that the wearing out of these necessary articles should not wear out, at the same time, the wealth of the town. " People will have boots," the Mayor said: " they can not afford to bring them in from Clermont, and so they will make them at Issoire, and all the boot money will remain at home. It is as though, so far as the city is concerned, Issoire getsher boots for nothing. To be sure, Cler- mont has a good water-power, and her nearness to the mountains makes the price of hides and tanbark lower, but this has nothing to do with the question. Nat- tural advantages amount to nothing when artificial advantages can be given ...« less