tions, it is certain that we must have some kind of government, and
that this government will spend a great deal of money. This money, too,
can very seldom be obtained in the form of real profit on the work done,
so that it must be raised by taxation. We generally apply the name tax
to any payment required from individuals towards the expenses of the
local or general government. We may easily indeed be taxed without being
aware of it; thus, nearly the half of every penny paid for posting a
letter is a tax, and a town may be taxed through the price of gas or
water.

At one time or another, and in one country or another, taxes have been
raised in every imaginable way. The #Poll Tax# was a payment required
from every poll or head of the population, man, woman, or child. This
was considered a very grievous tax and has never been levied in England
since the reign of William III. The #Hearth Tax# consisted of a payment
for each hearth in a house; then a rich family with a large house and
many hearths paid far more than a poor family with only one or two
hearths. But as people did not like the tax-gatherer coming into the
house to count the hearths, the window tax was substituted, because the
tax-gatherer could walk round the outside of the house, and count the
windows. Now, in England, we do not tax the light of heaven at all, but
we fix a man's payments by the rent of his house, the amount of his
income, or the quantity of wine and beer he drinks.

#96. Direct and Indirect Taxes.# Taxes are called #direct taxes# when
the payment is made by the person who is intended to bear the sacrifice.
This is the case generally with the assessed taxes, or the charges made
upon people who have menservants, private carriages, &c. As most people
keep carriages only for their own comfort, they cannot make other people
repay the cost of the tax. But if a carrier or tradesman were taxed for
his carts, he would be sure to make his customers repay it; thus the tax
would not be direct, and carriages employed in trade are therefore
exempt from taxation. Other taxes in England, which are generally direct
ones, are the income-tax, the dog-tax, the poor-rates, the house-duty;
but a tax which is usually direct, may sometimes become indirect, and it
is often impossible to say what is really #the incidence of a tax#, that
is, the manner in which it falls upon different classes of the
population.

#Indirect taxes# are paid in the first place by merchan