Excise

The Crown excise, more present in Kent than anywhere in the realm because hops are taxed on dried weight at the kiln, so an officer stands inside a private undertaking for six weeks a year.

The Crown's excise, whose officer attends every hop drying and assesses the hop duty on the dried weight at the kiln.

Ties

• part of the Crown's ordinary apparatus in Kent

At the table

Kent has petitioned against the arrangement nine times in a hundred and forty years and been refused each time. Nine Kentish petitions in a hundred and forty years for assessment at sale have been refused. The officers are local men and are treated civilly; there is a customary small margin of evasion. Planters expect a band to introduce itself to the officer on its first day in a garden.