New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1906-02-06
BURLEs0UE CUSTOM HOUSES.

Nathaniel Hawthorne once described the tran
QUILTING routine of life in the cobwebbed ONCE
of the Collector of the Port of Salem, MASS.
Salem was then living as q seaport on memo
rles Of former greatness, and the dusty ledgers
on the Collectors shelves were seldom disturbed
to enter a new record of valuations and duties.
Between entries the great romancer had ample
leisure to delve into Salem tradition ana peat
into shape the raw material of his researches
and his fancy. From a compilation recently
submitted to the House of Representatives we
should judge that indulgent government is
still maintaining a full complement of these
quiet retreats for poets and romancers Ports
of entry without shipping and collectors offices
without business still figure literally in our
customs establishment. The fact that they may
be harboring other Hawthornes is dismissed,
however, as an irrelevant consideration by re-
formers who want 10 abolish sinecures and to
abandon the pretence of collecting revenue at
points where no revenue is collectible.
The list of ports OF entry at which customs
expenses exceeded receipts for the fiscal year
19O4-'G5 is astonishingly long. There are fifty
one custom houses now kept open at an actual
loss. At these fifty-one ports an average of
less than $1,000 apiece was collected in
1904'05, while the cost of collection aver
aged more than $1,000 for each port. In ten
cases no collections whatever We're reported.
Kennebunk Me-; Little Egg Harbor. y. j.;
Nantucket, Mass; Natchez, Miss: Paducah,
Ky; Patchogue and Port Jefferson, \. Y;
Vicksburg. Miss, and Yaquina, Ore. There
eighteen other collectors offices which
took in less than 800 apiece. the cost of col
lecting 81 running as high as 1921 at Abe
marie, \. c., and $500 at Cherrystone, Va. The
greatest actual outlay at any of these non
paying points was at Brazos de Santiago
Brownsville Tex, but this post was estab-
lished and is maintained chiefly TO prevent
smuggling across the Mexican border. It's ex-
pense roll for 1904-O5 was $4O.131. and only
1854 was received in customs dues.
Such offices have their uses and must he re-
tanned, whether they produce revenue not.
On the Canadian and Mexican borders and In
the Gulf States accessible to the West Indies
observation stations to hold smugglers in check
cannot be dispensed with. but there seems to
be no. occasion for perpetuating the farce of
collecting duties at other ports whose commerce
is dead and whose microscOpical business can
he transferred to live custom houses in the
immediate neighborhoOd 1t would be safe and
practicable to close for entry such ports as
Castine, SacO and Kennebunk in Maine: Salem
Barnstable, Nantucket and Plymouth in Mas
sachusetts; Patchogue, in this state; Burlington,
BridgetOn and Little Egg Harbor in New-Jer-
sey; Annapolis, in Maryland; Cherrystone
Tappahannock, Albemarle Beaufort, y. c.. and
Pamlico, on the Southern Atlantic coast and
interior river ports like Vicksburg Natchez.
Cairo, Padueah, Burlington, Iowa. Galena,
Chattanooga and Rock Island. Foreign mer-
chandise actually reaching these points for
entry Is infinitesimal in value, and only local
vanity is served by classifying as ports of entry
certain towns and cities nearly a thousand
miles from the seaboard. Congress is consider
ing measure to consolidate the present Gus
toms collections districts and eliminate some
of these fictitious ports. The economy TO be
effected is inconsiderable, but the abolition of
sirceures which would result is to be commended
as step toward stricter and more rational
administration.