ompassion, at least
through prudential considerations, and this one more than any other,
since it is founded on the will of the greatest number, on the repeated
votes of majorities counted by heads.

To this end, it establishes two divisions of direct taxation: one,
the real-estate tax, which has no bearing on the taxpayer without any
property; and the other, the personal tax, which does affect him, but
lightly: calculated on the rate of rent, it is insignificant on an
attic, furnished lodging, hut or any other hovel belonging to a
laborer or peasant; again, when very poor or indigent, if the octroi is
burdensome, the exchequer sooner or later relieves them; add to this the
poll-tax which takes from them 1 franc and a half up to 4.50 francs per
annum, also a very small tax on doors and windows, say 60 centimes per
annum in the villages on a tenement with only one door and one window,
and, in the towns, from 60 to 75 centimes per annum for one room above
the second story with but one window.[3231] In this way, the old tax
which was crushing becomes light: instead of paying 18 or 20 livres for
his taille, capitatim and the rest, the journeyman or the artisan with
no property pays no more than 6 or 7 francs;[3232] instead of paying
53 livres for his vingtiemes for his poll, real and industrial tax, his
capitatim and the rest, the small cultivator and owner pays no more than
21 francs. Through this reduction of their fiscal charges (corvee) and
through the augmentation of their day wages, poor people, or those
badly off, who depended on the hard and steady labor of their hands,
the plowmen, masons, carpenters, weavers, blacksmiths, wheelwrights and
porters, every hired man and artisan, in short, all the laborious and
tough hands, again became almost free; these formerly owed, out of their
300 working days, from 20 to 59 to the exchequer; they now owe only
from 6 to 19,[3233] and thus gain from 14 to 40 free days during which,
instead of working for the exchequer, they work for themselves.--The
reader may estimate the value to a small household of such an
alleviation of the burden of discomfort and care.

IV. Various Taxes.

Other direct taxes.--Tax on business licenses.--Tax on
real-estate transactions.--The earnings of manual labor almost
exempt from direct taxation.--Compensation on another side.
--Indirect taxation.--In what respect the new machinery is
superior to the old.--Summary effe