Octroi

ok-trwa', a local tax imposed on goods entering a city or district. An octroi may be defined as a city or local tariff, with this difference, that it is designed for revenue only. It is not intended to keep goods out. The word is French. The custom is also French rather than Germanic. As late as 1900 an octroi was imposed by 1,500 French cities and towns. The most noted instance is that of Paris. Coal, for instance, on entering the city must pay a gate duty of $1.38 per ton. This brings a revenue of over $2,000,000 a year, but it keeps big factories outside of the city gates. The Paris octroi on alcohol is $3 a gallon, and brings in a revenue of $5,000,000 a year. Oil sells for seven cents a gallon less outside of the city walls than within the gates. Other articles paying the octroi are vinegar, fowls, eggs, dairy products, fish, game, meat, vegetables, fruits and fuel of all sorts. In the early morning, when gardeners are bringing their produce to the city markets, long lines of carts wait at the gates, while the officials measure and estimate and collect payment of octroi. The octroi tax gives rise to smuggling. It is a nuisance--an obstruction to business that would not be tolerated in any but an Old World city. It is akin to the road and bridge tolls and other devices for raising money tolerated by slow-going people. Historically, an octroi was imposed by Athens. Rome was not free from a gate tax. The octroi was abolished very generally in Belgium in 1860; Holland, 1865; Spain, 1869; and Germany, 1875. See Paris