_Excise collections._—The same difficulty is experienced in adjusting taxes by excise under our internal revenue system. Such revenues are largely collected through a sale of stamps, though the dealer himself may be required to pay a license fee, to secure the necessary inspection. Here, too, the tax is specific and bears most heavily upon the users of the poorest grade of goods. If attempt is made to grade it by quality, expensive machinery for preventing fraud is necessary. This is well illustrated in the list of officials required in connection with distilleries and bonded warehouses. Both the manufacture and the sale of alcoholic liquors must somewhere be under the inspection of an expert officer. All this necessary expense of collecting must be borne by the consumers. The bonded warehouse itself must not be mistaken for a part of this machinery, though it is essential to the collection. It is simply a device by which the holder of manufactured liquors subject to sale can avoid the payment of a tax until the time of actual delivery. His warehouse, being under bonds to the government, is open only in the presence of the revenue officer, who carries one of the keys necessary to its opening. Without this the tax would have to be paid at time of manufacture, and interest on that amount, to greater or less extent would finally be paid by the consumer. While this system protects essentially against fraud on the part of the owner alone, it does not protect against the weakness or wickedness of officials, and the temptation is sometimes enormous. _Peculiar taxes._—Aside from these general forms of taxation, peculiar devices are common. The stamps required on official papers or commercial transactions, involving checks, notes, mortgages and deeds, have been familiar at various times in our country, and are associated with the history of the world. These differ little from the practice of affixing stamps to patent medicines, cigars and other articles of trade; but instead of being attached to the article transferred they are affixed to the check or note or deed or bond employed in the transaction. These bear unequally, being proportionally heavy upon the people of small means, and are generally annoying in active business. They are frequently favored, however, as being felt most by those who deal most in commerce.