in the culture of tobacco. Levies for the support of the Church were not included in the exemption. Relief of any one class in the community from taxation, however important that class might be considered, to encourage its members in their business, was an experiment which could not be carried out without imposing hardships on the individuals of other classes; this was foreseen when the law was passed, for it was ordered that the statute should only remain in operation for three years. This length of time, it was expected, would give ample opportunity to test its merits. It was suspended before the first year had expired, the suspension to continue during five years, this provision having been suggested entirely by the poverty of the times.[1] It would seem that handicraftsmen at the end of this period were again exempted from the payment of levies by the revival of the same law. This is the inference to be drawn from the statute of 1672, passed ten years after the temporary revocation of the original privilege. Only youths below the age of sixteen who were really apprentices were excepted from the operation of this Act, which placed all mechanics upon the footing of the ordinary citizen in the matter of taxation, whatever usage prevailed to the contrary.[2] That it should have been necessary to pass such a law, is an indication that the artisans had previously been relieved from taxation on the ground that the interests of the community demanded that they should be especially encouraged in the pursuit of their trades.
The celebrated Act of Cohabitation, adopted in 1680, provided for the restoration of all the special privileges which in the past had been granted for the encouragement of the mechanical trades. It not only relieved the persons engaged in these trades, who would take up their resi-
