sickles or reaping hooks, scythes, spades, shovels, squares of iron or steel, plated, brass and polished steel saddlery, coach and harness furniture, of all descriptions, steelyards and scalebeams, socket chisels, vices and screws of iron, called woodscrews, thirty per centum ad valorem: on common tinned and japanned saddlery of all descriptions, ten per centum ad valorem:Proviso. Provided, That said articles shall not be imported at a less rate of duty than would have been chargeable on the material constituting their chief value, if imported in an unmanufactured state.
Steel.Eleventh. On steel, one dollar and fifty cents per one hundred and twelve pounds.
Japanned and plated wares, &c.Twelfth. On japanned wares of all kinds, on plated wares of all kinds, and on all manufactures, not otherwise specified, made of brass, iron, steel, pewter, or tin, or of which either of these metals is a component material, a duty of twenty-five per centum ad valorem: Provided,Proviso. That all articles manufactured in whole of sheet, rod, hoop, bolt, or bar iron, or of iron wire, or of which sheet, rod, hoop, bolt, or bar iron, or iron wire, shall constitute the greatest weight, and which are not otherwise specified, shall pay the same duty per pound that is charged by this act on sheet, rod, hoop, bolt, or bar iron, or on iron wire, of the same number, respectively:Proviso. Provided, also, That the said last mentioned rates shall not be less than the said duty of twenty-five per centum ad valorem.
Scrap and old iron, &c.Thirteenth. That all scrap and old iron shall pay a duty of twelve dollars and fifty cents per ton; that nothing shall be deemed old iron that has not been in actual use, and fit only to be re-manufactured; and all pieces of iron, except old, of more than six inches in length, or of sufficient length to be made into spikes and bolts, shall be rated as bar, bolt, rod, or hoop iron, as the case may be, and pay duty accordingly; all manufactures of iron, partly finished, shall pay the same rates of duty as if entirely finished; all vessels of cast iron, and all castings of iron, with handles, rings, hoops, or other addition of wrought iron, shall pay the same rates of duty as if made entirely of cast iron.
Hemp, sail duck, cotton bagging, &c.Fourteenth. On unmanufactured hemp, forty dollars per ton: sail duck, fifteen per centum ad valorem; and on cotton bagging, three and a half cents a square yard, without regard to the weight or width of the article:[1] On felts or hat bodies made wholly, or in part, of wool, eighteen cents each.
Manufactures of silk, &c.Fifteenth. On all manufactures of silk, or of which silk shall be a component part, coming from beyond the Cape of Good Hope, ten per centum ad valorem, and on all other manufactures of silk, or of which silk is a component part, five per centum ad valorem, except sewing silk, which shall be forty per centum ad valorem.
Sugars.Sixteenth. On brown sugar and syrup of sugar cane, in casks, two and a half cents per pound; and on white clayed sugar, three and one-third cents per pound.[2]- ↑ An act of Congress imposing a duty on imports, must be construed to describe the article upon which the duty is imposed according to the commercial understanding of the terms used in the law, in our own markets, at the time when the law was passed. Curtis v. Martin et al., 3 Howard, 106.
The duty, therefore, imposed by the act of 1832, upon cotton bagging, cannot properly be levied upon an article hich was not known in the market as cotton bagging in 1832, although it may subsequently be called so. Ibid.
- ↑ A seizure was made in the port of New Orleans, under the sixty-seventh section of the act of March 2, 1799, ch. 22, regulating the collection of duties, which authorizes the collector, when he shall suspect a false and fraudulent entry to have been made of any goods, wares, and merchandise, to cause an examination to be made; and if found to differ from the entry, the merchandise is to be forfeited, unless it shall be made to appear to the collector, or to the court in which a prosecution for the forfeiture shall be had, that such difference proceeded from accident or mistake, and not from an intention to defraud the revenue. The United States, by the collector of Mississippi, seized, as falsely entered at the custom-house in New Orleans, certain casks of sugar, which had been entered as “syrup,” alleging that they were sugar, in a partial solution in water. The libel charged the entry to have been made, with a fraudulent intention of evading the duty on sugar. The claimant gave evidence tending to show that the article seized was, in the prevailing mercantile understanding of the term, deemed syrup, and not sugar. By the Court:—The denomination of merchandise, subject to the payment of duties, is to be understood in a commercial sense, although it may not be scientifically correct. All laws regulating the collection of duties are for prac-
