The sentence sounds remarkably terse and epigrammatic. Most of such brilliant and highly-condensed crystals of wisdom, however, will be found on analysis to contain, along with some exaggerated truth, a considerable residuum of nonsense; and this specimen before us, we apprehend, forms no exception. Even if the fact so broadly asserted were indisputable, we should still be inclined to doubt, after what the author has himself told us, whether the "rule of the masses" is always an unmixed blessing to a community. He has seen enough of it to know at least that the preponderance of popular sway is not incompatible with much social restraint--with prejudice and narrow-mindedness--with what _he_ considers a false commercial principle--with a disregard of public faith, and of the rights of other nations; and lastly, with a contempt of the rights of humanity itself, and a legalised traffic in our fellow men. But, if we understand him rightly, he does not so much defend the abstract excellence of the democratic principle as advocate a nearer approach, on our part, to the American model of taxation. In the States, he says, property pays--in England the masses pay;--that is, if we strip the proposition of its antithetical obscurity, the owners of property pay less here than they do in America--not only _absolutely_ less, but less in proportion to the whole amount of taxation. The calculations on which he founds this assertion are too long and involved to be quoted at length, but we will endeavour to abridge them so as to enable the reader to judge of their accuracy. The taxes in the United States are of three classes: 1st,--the _national_ taxes, amounting to about six millions a-year, which are raised chiefly by customs duties on imports; 2d,--the _state_ taxes; 3d,--the _local_ taxes, for the service of the several counties, cities, and townships. These two last classes are levied chiefly in the form of an equal rate assessed upon the estimated value of all property, real and personal. In order to compare the incidence of the public burdens upon property in the two countries, Professor Johnston selects the case of New York State, in which the total taxable property (personal as well as real) in 1849 was 666,000,000 of dollars, and the amount of rates levied for state and local taxes 5,500,000 dollars, or about 4/5 per cent on the gross valuation. Turning then to Great Britain, (excluding Ireland,) he sets down the fee simple value of the real property alone in estates above £150 a-year, as rated to the income-tax, at £2,382,000,000.