Small broadside.

Possibly a political satire on a tariff policy relating to the importation of leather goods into Canada--possibly the Cayley-Galt tariff of 1858/59. Benhuron can be translated to mean Son of Huron (i.e. Huron County?); Cayley represented this area as a Member of Parliament in the 1850s. St. James is an American town in Missouri known for its leather manufactures. Jeremiah, one of the early prophets, was noted for preaching moral reform with threats of doom. El Muth refers to an obscure phrase in Psalms 9, Muth-labben, which some scholars suggest is an instruction that the Psalm be read as a dirge. St. Crispin is the patron saint of leather workers. Both American and British industry objected to the Cayley-Galt tariff, the first protective tariff in Canadian history. It imposed duties on imported manufactured goods of 20% and a duty of 10% on partially manufactured goods in an attempt to spur domestic manufacturing industries. The anger of the Americans played an important role in their 1866 repeal of the Reciprocity Treaty that had led to free trade in natural resources. The tariff was only a foretaste of the much more complete system of protection set up under the National Policy of 1879.