in political economy, or the duties, toll, tribute, or tariff, payable to the king upon merchandise exported and imported, form a branch of the perpetual taxes. See Tax.

The considerations upon which this revenue (or the more ancient part of it, which arose only from exports) was invested in the king, were said to be two: 1. Because he gave the subject leave to depart the kingdom, and to carry his goods along with him. 2. Because the king was bound of common right to maintain and keep up the ports and havens, and to protect the merchant from pirates. Some have imagined they are called with us customs, because they were the inheritance of the king by immemorial usage and the common law, and not granted him by any statute: but Sir Edward Coke hath clearly shown, that the king's first claim to them was by grant of parliament 3 Edw. I. though the record thereof is not now extant. And indeed this is in express words confessed by statute 25 Edw. I. c. 7. wherein the king promises to take no customs from merchants, without the common assent of the realm, "saving to us and our heirs the customs on wool, skins, and leather, formerly granted to us by the commonalty aforesaid." These were formerly called hereditary customs of the crown; and were due on the exportation only of the said three commodities, and of none other: which were styled the staple commodities of the kingdom, because they were obliged to be brought to those ports where the king's staple was established, in order to be there first rated, and then exported. They were denominated in the barbarous Latin of our ancient records, custuma, (an appellation which seems to be derived from the French word couflum, or cotium, which signifies toll or tribute, and owes its own etymology to the word coufl, which signifies price, charge, or, as we have adopted it in English, cost); not confuetudines, which is the language of our law whenever it means merely usages. The duties on wool, sheep-skins or woollens, and leather, exported, were called custuma antiqua sine magna: and were payable by every merchant, as well native as stranger; with this difference, that merchant-strangers paid an additional toll, viz. half as much again as was paid by natives. The custuma parva et nova were an impost of 3 d. in the pound, due from merchant-strangers only, for all commodities as well imported as exported; which was usually called the alien's duty, and was first granted in 31 Edw. I. But these ancient hereditary customs, especially those on wool and woollens, came to be of little account, when the nation became sensible of the advantages of a home manufacture, and prohibited the exportation of wool by statute 11 Edw. III. c. 1.

Other customs payable upon exports and imports were distinguished into subsidies, tonnage, poundage, and other imposts. Subsidies were such as were imposed by parliament upon any of the staple commodities before mentioned, over and above the custuma antiqua et magna: tonnage was a duty upon all wines imported, over and above the prifage and butlerage aforesaid: poundage was a duty imposed ad valorem, at the rate of 12 d. in the pound, on all other merchandise whatsoever: and the other imposts were such as were occasionally laid on by parliament, as circumstances and times required. These distinctions are now in a manner forgotten, except by the officers immediately concerned in this department; their produce being in effect all blended together, under the one denomination of the customs.

By these we understand, at present, a duty or Blackfriars subsidy paid by the merchant at the quay upon all imported as well as exported commodities, by authority of parliament; unless where, for particular national reasons, certain rewards, bounties, or drawbacks, are allowed for particular exports or imports. The customs thus imposed by parliament are chiefly contained in two books of rates, set forth by parliamentary authority; one signed by Sir Harbottle Grimston, speaker of the house of commons in Charles II.'s time; and the other an additional one signed by Sir Spencer Compton, speaker in the reign of George I. to which also subsequent additions have been made. Aliens pay a larger proportion than natural subjects, which is what is now generally understood by the aliens duty; to be exempted from which is one principal cause of the frequent applications to parliament for acts of naturalization.

These customs are then, we see, a tax immediately paid by the merchant, although ultimately by the consumer. And yet these are the duties felt least by the people; and, if prudently managed, the people hardly consider that they pay them at all. For the merchant... merchant is easy, being sensible he does not pay them for himself; and the consumer, who really pays them, confounds them with the price of the commodity: in the same manner as Tacitus observes, that the emperor Nero gained the reputation of abolishing the tax of the sale of slaves, though he only transferred it from the buyer to the seller; so that it was, as he expresses it, *renifugium magis specie, quam vi: quia, cum venditor pendere jubetur, in partem pretii emporibus accreverebat.* But this inconvenience attends it on the other hand, that these imposts, if too heavy, are a check and cramp upon trade; and especially when the value of the commodity bears little or no proportion to the quantity of the duty imposed. This consequence gives rise also to smuggling, which then becomes a very lucrative employment; and its natural and most reasonable punishment, viz. confiscation of the commodity, is in such cases quite ineffectual; the intrinsic value of the goods, which is all that the smuggler has paid, and therefore all that he can lose, being very inconsiderable when compared with his prospect of advantage in evading the duty. Recourse must therefore be had to extraordinary punishments to prevent it; perhaps even to capital ones; which destroys all proportion of punishment, and puts murderers upon an equal footing with such as are really guilty of no natural, but merely a positive, offence.

There is also another ill consequence attending high imposts on merchandise, not frequently considered, but indubitably certain; that the earlier any tax is laid on a commodity, the heavier it falls upon the consumer in the end; for every trader through whose hands it passes must have a profit, not only upon the raw material and his own labour and time in preparing it, but also upon the very tax itself, which he advances to the government; otherwise he loses the use and interest of the money which he so advances. To instance in the article of foreign paper. The merchant pays a duty upon importation, which he does not receive again till he sells the commodity, perhaps at the end of three months. He is therefore equally intitled to a profit upon that duty which he pays at the custom-house, as to a profit upon the original price which he pays to the manufacturer abroad; and considers it accordingly in the price he demands of the stationer. When the stationer sells it again, he requires a profit of the printer or bookseller upon the whole sum advanced by him to the merchants; and the bookseller does not forget to charge the full proportion to the student or ultimate consumer; who therefore does not only pay the original duty, but the profits of these three intermediate traders, who have successively advanced it for him. This might be carried much farther in any mechanical, or more complicated, branch of trade.

**Custom-House,** an office established by the king's authority in the maritime cities, or port-towns, for the receipt and management of the customs and duties of importation and exportation, imposed on merchandises, and regulated by books of rates.

**Custos brevium,** the principal clerk belonging to the court of common pleas, whose business it is to receive and keep all the writs made returnable in that court, filing every return by itself; and, at the end of each term, to receive of the prothonotaries all the records of the nisi prius, called the *posse.*

**Custos Rotulorum,** an officer who has the custody of the rolls and records of the sessions of peace, and also of the commission of the peace itself.

He usually is some person of quality, and always a justice of the peace, of the quorum, in the county where he is appointed.

**Custos Spiritualium,** he that exercises the spiritual jurisdiction of a diocese, during the vacancy of any see, which, by the canon-law, belongs to the dean and chapter; but at present, in England, to the archbishop of the province, by prescription.

**Custos Temporalium,** was the person to whom a vacant see or abbey was given by the king, as supreme lord. His office was, as steward of the goods and profits, to give an account to the exchequer, who did the like to the exchequer.

**Cut-a-feather,** in the sea-language. If a ship has too broad a bow, it is common to say, *she will not cut a feather,* that is, she will not pass through the water so swift as to make it foam or froth.

**Cut Purse,** in law; if any person *clam & secreto,* and without the knowledge of another, cut his purse or pick his pocket, and steal from thence above the value of twelve pence, it is felony excluded clergy.

**Cut-purses or faccularii,** were more severely punished than common thieves by the Roman and Athenian laws.

**Cut Water,** the sharp part of the head of a ship below the beak. It is so called because it cuts or divides the water before it comes to the bow, that it may not come too suddenly to the breadth of the ship, which would retard her.

**Cutaneous,** in general, an appellation given to whatever belongs to the cutis or skin. Thus, we say cutaneous eruptions; the itch is a cutaneous disease.

**Cuth,** or **Cuthah** (anc. geog.), a province of Assyria, which, as some say, lies upon the Araxes, and is the same with Cush; but others take it to be the same with the country which the Greeks call *Siphana,* and which to this very day, says Dr Wells, is by the inhabitants called *Chufelan.* F. Calmet is of opinion that Cuthah and Scythia are the same place, and that the Cuthites who were removed into Samaria by Salmanefer (2 Kings xvii. 24.) came from Cush or Cuth, mentioned in Gen. ii. 13. See the article **Cush.**—The Cuthites worshipped the idol Nergal. id. ibid. 30. These people were transplanted into Samaria in the room of the Israelites, who before inhabited it. Calmet is of opinion, that they came from the land of Cush, or Cuthah upon the Araxes; and that their first settlement was in the cities of the Medes, subdued by Salmanefer and the kings of Syria his predecessors. The scripture observes, that the Cuthites, upon their arrival in this new country, continued to worship the gods formerly adored by them beyond the Euphrates. Esarhaddon king of Assyria, who succeeded Sennacherib, appointed an Israelitish priest to go thither, and instruct them in the religion of the Hebrews. But these people thought they might reconcile their old superstition with the worship of the true God. They therefore framed particular gods for themselves, which they placed in the several cities where they dwelt. The Cuthites then worshipped both the Lord and their false gods together, and chose the lowest of the people to make priests of them in the high places; and they continued this practice for a long time. But afterwards they forsook the worship of idols, and adhered only to the law of Moses, as the Samaritans who are descended from the Cuthites do at this day.