Robert Merry's Museum, Volumes I-II (1841)

by Various

The New Custom-House, Boston.

Between Long and Central wharves, in Boston, a large edifice is now in progress, called the New Custom-House. A picture of it as it will be when finished, engraved by Mr. Devereux, whose office you will find at No. 47 Court street, is given on the opposite page. The building is of granite, and already it may be seen that it is to be one of the finest structures in the city. The lofty fluted columns have already an imposing effect. They are thirty-two feet in length, and weighed forty-three tons each—they were obtained in one of the quarries at Quincy. It required forty or fifty yoke of oxen to bring one of these enormous pillars to the city.

New Custom-House, Boston.

This Custom-House is constructed by the government of the United States. I suppose most of my readers know the use of a custom-house; but for the benefit of those who do not, I will explain its object. It is a place where the customs, or duties, laid on goods brought into port by ships from foreign countries, are paid and received.

The course of the business is this. When a vessel from England, or France, or any other place, comes into port, a person from the custom-house, called a boarding officer, goes into her, and receives from the captain the ship’s papers. These consist of—1. The Manifest, which is a paper setting forth the cargo, and signed by the master of the vessel. 2. The Register, which is a paper signed by an officer of the treasury at Washington, and countersigned by the collector of the port where she belongs—giving a description of the vessel, with her name, her size, who her owners are, and where she was built. 3. The Roll of Equipage, which contains the names of the ship’s company, that is, the captain, mate, and hands; and, 4. A list of the passengers.

These papers are taken by the boarding officer to the collector of the port, and the captain is required to enter his ship at the custom-house within twenty-four hours after his arrival. Then, if all the papers are right, the goods brought in the vessel may be entered at the custom-house by the several persons to whom they belong. These persons must make oath that the invoices are correct, pay the duty or tax on the goods, and then take them away.

There are public stores attached to the custom-house, to which goods may be sent, if the master applies for the privilege, or if they are not called for in five days. During the unlading of a vessel, an officer of the custom-house, called a tidewaiter, remains on board, and takes an account of the cargo, so as to see that it corresponds with the manifest and the entries made by the owners.

The great object of all this is to get money to support the government with. The tax on some goods is twenty-five per cent., and on some it is thirty per cent., and on some there is no tax. The amount of goods received at the Boston custom-house is immense. You may judge of this by considering that several millions of dollars are taken there every year. About eighty persons are employed at the custom-house in Boston. The superintendent of the whole business is called the Collector. The old custom-house of Boston, now used, is inconvenient; the new one will be much larger and better.

There is a new custom-house at New York, which is a very different edifice from this at Boston; it is also much larger, for the business done there is more than four times as great as that done at the Boston custom-house. There are many other custom-houses in this country, as at Philadelphia, Baltimore, and other places where ships come. From all these, the government of the United States receives about twenty millions of dollars every year. With this money, and what they get from the sale of public lands and other sources, they pay the expenses of the government, which are very great. The army costs a great deal of money, and so does the navy. I suppose one ship of war will cost half a million of dollars a year while in active service! Then the President receives 25,000 dollars a year, and each of the foreign ministers has 9,000 a year, and the officers of the custom-houses, members of Congress, and ten thousand postmasters, and a great many other persons, in the service of the government, must all be paid. So you will see that if the government receives a great deal of money, it has need of a great deal. The average expense of our government is 25,000,000 of dollars, which is about six hundred and fifty tons of silver, and would be as much as four hundred horses could draw!