oor or
straitened, are thus relieved, while the other half, since the tax is an
impost, not a quota, but an apportionment, is overcharged as much.]

[Footnote 4222: One result of this principle is, that the poor who are
exempt from taxation or who are on the poor list have no vote, which is
the case in England and in Prussia.--Through another result of the same
principle, the law of May 15, 1818, in France, summoned the heaviest
taxpayers, in equal number with the members of the municipal council, to
deliberate with it every time that "a really urgent expenditure" obliged
the commune to raise extra additional centimes beyond the usual 0 fr.
05. "Thus," says Henrion de Pancey ("Du pouvoir municipal," p.109),
"the members of the municipal councils belong to the class of small
land-owners, at least in a large number of communes, voted the charges
without examination which only affected them insensibly."--This last
refuge of distributive justice was abolished by the law of April 5,
1882.]

[Footnote 4223: Max Leclerc, "Le Vie municipale en Prusse." (Extrait des
"Annales de l'Ecole libre des sciences politique," 1889, a study on the
town of Bonn.) At Bonn, which has a population of 35,810 inhabitants,
the first group is composed of 167 electors: the second, of 471; the
third, of 2607, each group elects 8 municipal councilors out of 24.]

[Footnote 4224: De Foville, "La France economique," p. 16 (census of
1881).--Number of communes, 36,097; number below 1000 inhabitants,
27,503; number below 500 inhabitants, 16,870.--What is stated applies
partly to the two following categories: 1st, communes from 1000 to
1500 inhabitants, 2982; 2nd, communes from 1500 to 2000 inhabitants,
1917.--All the communes below 2000 inhabitants are counted as rural in
the statistics of population, and they number 33,402.]

[Footnote 4225: See Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, "L'Etat moderne et ses
fonctions," p. 169. "The various groups of inhabitants, especially in
the country, do not know how to undertake or agree upon anything
of themselves. I have seen villages of two or three hundred people
belonging to a large scattered commune wait patiently for years and
humbly petition for aid in constructing an indispensable fountain, which
required only a contribution of 200 or 300 francs, 5 francs per head, to
put up. I have seen others possessing only one road on which to send off
their produce and unable to act in concert, when, with an outlay of
2000 francs, a