VII.
A CHINESE STORY.
They exclaim against the greed and the selfishness of the age!
Open the thousand books, the thousand papers, the thousand pamphlets, which the Parisian presses throw out every day on the country; is not all this the work of little saints?
What spirit in the painting of the vices of the time! What touching tenderness for the masses! With what liberality they invite the rich to divide with the poor, or the poor to divide with the rich! How many plans of social reform, social improvement, and social organization! Does not even the weakest writer devote himself to the well-being of the laboring classes? All that is required is to advance them a little money to give them time to attend to their humanitarian pursuits.
There is nothing which does not assume to aid in the well-being and moral advancement of the people—nothing, not even the Custom House. You believe that it is a tax machine, like a duty or a toll at the end of a bridge? Not at all. It is an essentially civilizing, fraternizing and equalizing institution. What would you have? It is the fashion. It is necessary to put or affect to put feeling or sentimentality everywhere, even in the cure of all troubles.
But it must be admitted that the Custom House organization has a singular way of going to work to realize these philanthropic aspirations.
It puts on foot an army of collectors, assistant collectors, inspectors, assistant inspectors, cashiers, accountants, receivers, clerks, supernumeraries, tide-waiters, and all this in order to exercise on the industry of the people that negative action which is summed up in the word to prevent.
Observe that I do not say to tax, but really to prevent.
And to prevent, not acts reproved by morality, or opposed to public order, but transactions which are innocent, and which they have even admitted are favorable to the peace and harmony of nations.