This has
been raised by a tax of $5 levied on about 40,000 males. Nearly the
whole sum is expended in paying and equipping the army, and in the
salary of officials. Dissatisfied with the small amount of revenue, the
Prince undertook, during the past year, to reorganise the taxation. An
impost upon property was projected in lieu of the capitation tax, but
having, unfortunately, started without any very well-defined basis, the
system broke down, actually producing a smaller revenue than was yielded
by the original method. Equally abortive, as might have been
anticipated, was the scheme for raising a militia of 50,000 men.
Presupposing, for the sake of argument, a strong military spirit to be
rife among the people, the financial condition of the country would
render the idea untenable, since it is with difficulty that the 1,800
soldiers who constitute the regular army can be maintained. Granting
even the willingness to serve, and the ability of the government to pay
them, the population of the country would not, according to ordinary
statistics, furnish so large a force. The greatest number that could be
calculated on in the event of war would be about 40,000 men, and these
only in a war in which the national sympathy might be deeply enlisted.
How many of this number would remain in arms, would probably depend on
the amount of plunder to be obtained, and the nature of the resistance
which they might encounter.

The material of the existing force is about on an equality with that of
most continental armies. A portion of the troops are armed with rifles,
and the remainder with unbrowned muskets. One battery of artillery forms
the aggregate of that arm of the service. There are 70 guns at the
arsenal at Kragiewatz, but they are all old and unfit for field service.
A French Colonel has lately been imported to fill the combined offices
of War-Minister and Commander-in-Chief. This, and, indeed, the whole of
the recent internal policy, leaves very little doubt of the source
whence emanate these high-flown ideas. It cannot be better expressed
than as a _politique d'ostentation_, which is, if we may compare small
things with great, eminently French. The oscillation of French and
Russian influence, and the amicable manner in which their delegates
relinquish the field to each other alternately, implies the existence of
a mutual understanding between them. Whether this accord extends to a
wider sphere and more momentous questions, tim