THE OCTROI.
Those travellers who, after an excursion to the suburbs of Paris, see their carriage stopped by an official in a green tunic with silver buttons, who asks solemnly, "Have you anything to declare?" are usually far from imagining that they are witnessing a manifestation of one of the most important of the Parisian financial functions. For such undoubtedly must the octroi be considered. It is the tax that supports Paris—that pays for her improvements, her cleansing, her lighting, her poor-fund—that supports the hospitals, keeps her pavements and sewers in repair, and, in a word, pays all her necessary expenses. It encircles Paris as with an iron hand; it watches at every gate, at every quay, at every entrance-point to the city; it is for ever on the alert to discover fraud. One hundred and twenty-five officers and three thousand subordinates are employed in collecting this colossal tax and in guarding against its being evaded. The revenue thus produced has amounted during the last few years to over twenty-five millions of dollars annually. No wonder that Paris can afford to beautify herself with new adornments continually. She is a millionaire among cities, and can pay for new decorations at will.
The octroi, in its present form, is a comparatively modern institution. It dates from the 18th of October, 1798. Before the law was passed Paris had fallen into a piteous plight. The contractors threatened to cease all operations; nobody had been paid for a long time; the city was not even able to pay the pitiful sum of sixteen thousand francs which was owing to the street-sweepers. Out of this municipal poverty arose the octroi, and during the first year of its functions it produced over a million and a half of dollars. Yet it was far from bringing in at that time all that it should have done, owing to the insufficient force of agents employed and the gigantic frauds that were perpetrated on all sides. As soon as night came the smugglers set to work at all the unprotected points—and they were many—of the fortifications. Ladders were planted against the walls, and barrels of wine, bottles of brandy, packets of butcher's meat, etc. were lowered into the city by means of cords. Subterranean passages were dug, establishing a communication between the interior and the exterior of the city. It was not till the reign of the First Napoleon that these abuses were definitely suppressed.
Nearly every article of daily consumption that enters Paris is taxed by the octroi—meat, wine, spirits, fruits, vegetables, ice, wood, coal, etc.—and also all building materials. It has been estimated that the octroi-tax on an edifice in Paris that costs twenty thousand dollars amounts to one thousand dollars. The largest part of the revenue is acquired from wines and spirits. Wine pays about twenty-three francs on the hectolitre: it is taxed by quantity, and not ad valorem; which is an act of crying injustice to the poor man, whose cup of petit bleu must pay as much as does the goblet of old Burgundy of the millionaire. One of the heaviest taxed of all articles is absinthe, owing to the desire of the authorities to suppress the use of it as much as possible. After all claims upon it are acquitted a bottle of absinthe will be found to have been charged nearly four hundred per cent. on its original value.
This law, which strikes not only absinthe, but all other kinds of liqueurs and of spirits, with excessive duties, was passed in 1871, and the effects were immediately manifest, only sixty thousand hectolitres of alcohol being brought into Paris in 1872, against one hundred and sixty-nine thousand in 1871. The immense consumption of absinthe, which just before the war was so marked a feature of the café-life of Paris, has now greatly decreased. But to make this temperance movement on the part of the French authorities fully effectual, the tax on vin ordinaire should have been taken off altogether.
These heavy duties have naturally called into being among the quick-witted French an active system of frauds against the octroi; and that is not the least interesting part of the question to study. Against these petty smugglers a band of picked officials, selected for their probity and intelligence from among the whole force of the service of the octroi, has been organized. Eighteen among these act as detectives. They wear no uniform, assume various disguises, and are well acquainted with all the mysterious nooks of Paris and with all the holes and corners of the suburbs. They seem to scent out a fraud as a hunting-dog does game. Thus, a few years ago two huge blocks of Swiss granite passed the barriers unquestioned. Some keen-witted detective immediately asked himself why and for what purpose had those great masses of stone been brought from such a distance. He prowled about them for a little while, observed a curious depression in one end of the largest block, and ended by discovering that both were hollow and were packed full of contraband goods.
The custom-house authorities have formed a museum of the most curious of the objects that have been captured whilst passing the barriers, and that were constructed for the purposes of fraud. The list is an interesting one, and reflects great credit upon the ingenuity of the smugglers, if not upon their honesty. False busts worn by make-believe wet nurses, false abdomens, hats with double crowns, hollow horse-collars, footstools lined with tin, carriage-seats concealing tin boxes, etc., etc., abound. There, too, may be seen a pile of pieces of linen fastened together with a cord, each of which is simply a box of zinc covered with linen. This trick was really ingenious, and was detected in a very odd way. The wagon that conveyed this merchandise into Paris was marked on the side "Toiles et Nouveautés," and the letters struck the custom-house agents as being a great deal too large and conspicuous. Hence arose suspicion and a thorough examination.
The museum also preserves among its curiosities an ordinary-looking cab, which is a hollow structure made of painted tin. There, too, are to be seen piles of common plates, as innocent-looking as it is possible for crockery to be. The first half dozen plates are all right: the rest are perforated and conceal a tube of tin. It will be seen that all these contrivances are directed toward the smuggling of one article—namely, spirits.
The product of the octroi averages about sixty francs per annum for every inhabitant of Paris. It is an indirect income-tax which is exacted from every dweller in the city. Unfortunately, its operations weigh heavily only on the very poorest classes. The banker of the Faubourg St. Honoré or the noble of the Faubourg St. Germain troubles himself very little about the extra price that he is thus forced to pay for his salmon or his chambertin. But among the very poor, those whose daily expenditure is counted not by sous, but by centimes, this tax is very severely felt. It is argued, however, that the poor man profits even more by the product of this tax than does the rich one, the hospitals, for instance, being chiefly maintained by its means.
L. H. H.