[38] At Noyon, Ham, and
Chauny, and in the surrounding parishes, the butchers, innkeepers,
and publicans combined, who have refused to pay excise duties, pick
flaws in the special decree by which the Assembly subjects them to
the law, and a second special decree is necessary to circumvent
these new legal experts. The process at Lyons is simpler. Here the
thirty-two sections appoint commissioners; these decide against the
octroi, and request the municipal authorities to abolish it. They
must necessarily comply, for the people are at hand and are furious.
Without waiting, however, for any legal measures, they take the
authority on themselves, rush to the toll-houses and drive out the
clerks, while large quantities of provisions, which "through a
singular predestination" were waiting at the gates, come in free of
duty. - The Treasury defends itself as it best can against this
universally bad disposition of the tax-payer, against these
irruptions and infiltrations of fraud; it repairs the dike where it
has been carried away, stops up the fissures and again resumes
collections.
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