Up to 1842, the millers themselves were considered as responsible fiscal agents; but after that time, the supervision of every mill was intrusted to an official called a 'weigher' (_custode pesatore_); but not being usually a very faithful guardian, bribery soon became rampant. In the Ecclesiastical State, where the tax was farmed out to contractors, the mode of its exaction was in many respects similar to that existing in Sicily. By an edict of 1801, which deserves notice as a legislative curiosity, a miller was liable to be sent to the galleys, besides paying a heavy fine, for a variety of offences--such as that of grinding corn not regularly consigned to him in the manner prescribed; of receiving corn or sending out flour at night; and others of similar enormity. In the district of the Agro Romano, all bread had to be stamped; and the absence of the proper stamp exposed the guilty baker to a fine of one hundred scudi and corporal punishment, or even to slavery in the galleys. The inhabitants of this district were only allowed to use bread baked within it, and they might be compelled to declare where they got their bread. Though the tax was temporarily abolished in its last strongholds in the year 1860, it was subsequently revived, until all the statutes relating to the subject were finally consolidated in 1874. The tax, which must now be paid to the miller at the time of grinding, is charged at the rate of two lire (of about tenpence each) per hundred kilograms on wheat; and one lira on maize, rye, oats, and barley. The miller pays periodically to the collector of taxes a corresponding fixed charge for every hundred revolutions of the millstone, to be ascertained by an instrument called _contatore_, which is affixed to the shaft at the cost of the government. The amount of this charge is determined for every mill according to the quality and force of the machinery and the mode of grinding. The miller may refuse the rate as first calculated; in which case the revenue authorities have the power to employ an instrument which will record the weight or volume of the corn ground; or of collecting the tax directly by their own officers, or of farming the tax. Should they not think fit to exercise such powers, the rate is determined by experts. The impost, it is perhaps hardly necessary to say, is an eminently unpopular one, and was only consented to under the pressure of extreme necessity.