(304.) As soon as a tax is put upon any article, the ingenuity of those who make, and of those who use it, is directed to the means of evading as large a part of that tax as they can; and this may often be accomplished in ways that are perfectly fair and legal. An excise duty exists at present of 3d. per pound upon all writing-paper. The effect of this impost is, that much of the paper which is employed, is made extremely thin, in order that the weight of a given number of sheets may be as small as possible. Soon after the first imposition of the tax upon windows, which depended upon their number, and not upon their size, new-built houses began to have fewer windows and of a larger size than before. Staircases were lighted by extremely long windows, illuminating three or four flights of stairs. When the tax was increased, and the size of windows charged as single was limited, then still greater care was taken to have as few windows as possible, and internal lights became frequent. These internal lights in their turn became the subject of taxation; but it was easy to evade the discovery of them, and in the last act of parliament, reducing the assessed taxes, they ceased to be chargeable.

From the changes thus successively introduced in the number, the forms, and the positions of the windows, a tolerable guess might, in some instances, be formed of the age of a house.

(305.) The effects of regulations of excise upon our home manufactures are often productive of inconvenience; and check, in some measure, the natural progress of improvement.