At all the gates of the city, in the railway stations, and at the river entrances of the capital, the posts of the octroi are established, and the formula of address of the green-uniformed officials is generally the same: "You have nothing to declare?" Foreign visitors are especially advised against the carrying in their baggage of tobacco and matches, the manufacture of these being a government monopoly; French _allumettes_ are _very_ bad, but it is better to throw away your cherished boxes of neat wax-matches before entering the barriers. With these exceptions, the officials are tolerant of the introduction of contraband articles in small quantities,--a half-bottle of ordinary wine, two pounds of fish caught by hook and line, a pound of salt, a bundle of hay or straw, etc. The agents act under the authority of the Préfet of the Seine; the objects submitted to this duty, intended for local consumption, are designated by the Conseil Municipal and approved by the government. The officials have the right of search; dutiable objects to be carried through the city are entitled to "escort" by the agents of the octroi, or they may pay the tax at the entrance with the privilege of having it refunded when leaving. All the communes of the Department of the Seine, considered as the banlieue of Paris, have the right of levying an entrance duty upon brandies, spirits, and liquors. The penalties provided for smuggling are the confiscation of the article and of the means used in its transportation; a fine of from a hundred to two hundred francs, and even imprisonment, if the attempt has been made by means of escalade or subterranean proceedings, or with prepared methods of concealment. All dutiable articles must be declared, no matter how small the quantity carried. As both the city and the State are interested in the collection of this tax, the agents have a double mandate to execute their duties, and the contraventions of the law are pursued at one time in the name of the public Treasury and the octroi, and at another in the name of the Préfet of the Seine. Each gate of the city has its peculiar class of produce to tax, according to the locality to which it gives entrance; and the daily receipts vary to an astonishing degree. At the Orléans dépôt, the duties on merchandise have reached a hundred thousand francs a day and fallen to five hundred; the Porte de Saint-Denis ranges from fifty thousand francs to four!