item in it is the record of more than fiscal economy. It measures the government’s efforts, as well to defeat the devices of smugglers and the designs of foreign producers as to raise its own revenues. “As the laws of nations are the crystallizations of its historical experiences, so the customs regulations of a people are the residual crystallization of its commercial relations with foreigners, its efforts at industrial development and self-preservation, and its bitter acquaintance with greed, guile and guilt.”[B] The country’s acquaintance with greed, guile and guilt does not stop at such manifestations of human nature in those who seek to evade the payment of duties, either. It has to protect itself at the same time against the dishonesty and incapacity of its own servants. The customs system is therefore one of checks and balances to secure (1) the impartial and rigorous collection of _all_ duties; (2) the prevention of mistakes in accounts; (3) the prevention of frauds and peculations, both inside and outside the custom houses. To secure all these the system of book-keeping and business detail is grown wonderfully complex and ingenious. The work is divided into three departments, or bureaus, each under the head of its official, all separate and distinct from one another, all under the jurisdiction of the Collector of Customs, and yet each official having his prerogatives and duties which the Collector can not interfere with. Each department revises the work of the others and tests accuracy and fidelity therein. The Collector’s duties are to see that all the departments do theirs. The Surveyor of the Port has charge of all outside matters. He is the eye of the Custom House. He is its right hand, which is laid upon a vessel, its passengers and cargo as soon as they enter the Narrows, and never taken off until all dues and requirements of the government are paid and fulfilled. The Appraiser is to inspect, value, and catalogue all merchandise, and apportion the duties thereon. The Naval Officer is to revise the work of all the others, and correct errors and neglects, but he has nothing to do with the machinery of collection. To insure greater correctness there is a reviser of the revisers, who about a year after the clearance of a cargo takes all the papers connected with it, computes, compares and checks them off, and ascertains what has become of all the goods invoiced. One would suppose that after a ship and its invoices had run the gauntlet of all these lynx-eyed officials, and the accounts had been cast in half a dozen different ways, and the whole affair probed, and pried open, and pried into, and taken to pieces and put together again in different ways, errors and frauds would be impossible. Importers evidently have not such faith in the perfection and inevitableness of the system, for appeals from the demands of the custom house are frequent, and upward of five hundred suits in a year are brought in court against the collector.