The daily morning journal and courier., 1906-02-03
BEATING THE ocTRoL.

The writer lived in one of the sub- urbs of Paris within the tramWay rad jus but without the city walls. It was just on the border line of an octroi area In the same street house and garden were being demolished, and a small summer house with iron framework and lattieed walls stood among the de- bris He made overtures for the pur- chase of the structure. The contractor was most anxious to sell, and stated as his chief reason that while his yard was only on the other side of the street 1t was another octroi area, and per mission to transport the article thither would cost him ten francs on account of the octroi duty on the iron of the framework. A specific example such as this though trivial in itself, is im- portant as proof of the never absent need of reckoning with the octroi in the most ordinary transactions within areas divided by octroi barriers but commercially and geographically one.
 It is possible for a smuggler to pur- sue his practices without outraging his moral sense. Thus smuggling is com mon at the barriers of the city of Paris and at Paris railway termini. The housewife living within Paris and near the city gates may, if she succeed in adoping a method of secreting her pur- chases from the lynx eyes of the octroi servants, find peculiary advantage by doing her marketing outside the walls. Considerable skill combined with inventive ingenuity is sometimes shown in evading payment of legal | dues. The reader who has chanced to be in St Cloud or Suresne on a Saturday has doubtless been in terested in the marriage parties which I invade the cafes and promenade in the l parks, always arriving and departing on wagonettes. The bride is always seated demure, happy, and sometimes pretty under her marriage veil, in a corner of the conveyance, and the re- llatiyes and invited guests in their best clothes or hired garments talk and laugh and otherwise enjoy themselves. Even the oetroi official smile benignly upon such parties, and may even abate somewhat the rigor of their inspection. But one Saturday an petrol officer, whose post had been changed q few days before, thought that he recegniz- 1 ed a passing wedding party as one he had seen enter by another gate a week previously. The bride was the same, and also, he thought, the groom. although a Frenchman pays small heed to the groom if the bride be with in the zone of vision. The intervening time seemed rather short for the death and burial of husband number one, and for the courtship, acceptance and con cdusion of the nuptial arrangements of his successor, if the lucky man then passing had married the widow. Ac- cordingly a word of caution was sent round to the various petrol posts. and on the following Saturday the same party was stopped. The only unconcerr ed member was the bride. She retained
 her corner; a wife with frozen smile. 1 Under the bridal veil the damask cheek was of wax, the blush skillful appli-
 cation of pigment, and the somewhat portly figure was of zinc filled to tht
 wig with alcohol. How often thu often the weekly wedding knot hat
 been tied was never known, but tn,
 polygamous practice was suppressed forthwith-W B. Robertson, in The
 Nineteenth Century.