CUSTOM-HOUSE, the house or office appointed by a government where the taxes or duties (if any) are collected upon the importation and exportation of commodities; where duties, bounties or drawbacks payable or receivable upon exportation or importation are paid or received, and where vessels are entered and cleared. In the United Kingdom there is usually a custom-house established at every port or harbour to which any considerable amount of shipping resorts, the officer in charge being called “collector of customs”; in the minor ports the officer is usually termed “superintendent of customs” or “principal coast officer.”
CUSTOM DUTIES, the name given to taxes on the import and export of commodities. They rank among the most ancient, as they continue to prevail as one of the most common modes, in all countries, of levying revenue for public purposes. In an insular country like the United Kingdom customs duties came in process of time to be levied only or chiefly in the seaports, and thus applied only to the foreign commerce, where they may be brought under the control of fair and reasonable principles of taxation. But this simplification of customs duties was only reached by degrees; and during a long period special customs were levied on goods passing between England and Scotland; and the trade of Ireland with Great Britain and with foreign countries was subjected to fiscal regulations which could not now stand in the light of public reason. The taxes levied, on warrant of some ancient grant or privilege, upon cattle or goods at a bridge or a ferry or other point of passage from one county or province to another, of which there are some lingering remains even in the United Kingdom, and those levied at the gates of cities on the produce of the immediate country—a not uncommon form of municipal taxation on the European continent—are all of the nature of customs dues. It is from the universality of this practice that the English term “customs” appears to have been derived.
See [Taxation]; [Protection]; [Tariff].
CUSTOS ROTULORUM, the keeper of the English county records, and by virtue of that office the highest civil officer in the county. The appointment until 1545 lay with the lord chancellor, but is now exercised by the crown under the royal sign-manual, and is usually held by a person of rank, most frequently the lord-lieutenant of the county. He is one of the justices of the peace. In practice the records are in the custody of the clerk of the peace. This latter official was, until 1888, appointed by the custos rotulorum, but since the passing of the Local Government Act of that year, the appointment is made by the standing joint-committee of the county council. Lambarde described the custos rotulorum as a “man for the most part especially picked out either for wisdom, countenance or credit.”
CUSTOZZA, a village of Italy, in the province of Verona, 11 m. S.W. of Verona, famous as the scene of two battles between the Austrians and the Italians in the struggle for Italian unity. The first battle of Custozza was fought on the 23rd-25th of July 1848, the Austrians commanded by Field-Marshal Radetzky being victorious over the Piedmontese army under King Charles Albert. The second battle was fought on the 24th of June 1866, and resulted in the complete victory of the Austrians under the archduke Albert, over the Italian army of King Victor Emmanuel I. (See [Italian Wars], 1848-1870.)