With regard to "pecuniary expenditures" required in military defence, many absurd as well as false statements have been put forth. With respect to our own country, the entire amounts expended, under the head of war department, whether for Indian pensions, for the purchase of Indian lands, the construction of government roads, the improvement of rivers and harbors, the building of breakwaters and sea-walls, for the preservation of property, the surveying of public lands, &c., &c.; in fine, every expenditure made by officers of the army, under the war department, is put down as "expenses for military defence." Similar misstatements are made with respect to foreign countries: for example, the new fortifications of Paris are said to have already cost from fifty to seventy-five millions of dollars, and as much more is said to be required to complete them. Indeed, we have seen the whole estimated cost of those works stated at two hundred and forty millions of dollars, or twelve hundred millions of francs! The facts are these: the works, when done, will have cost about twenty-eight millions. We had the pleasure of examining them not long since, in company with several of the engineer officers employed on the works. They were then three-fourths done, and had cost about twenty millions. We were assured by these officers that the fortifications proper would be completed for somewhat less than the original estimate of twenty-eight millions. Had we time to enter into details, other examples of exaggeration and misrepresentation could be given. But it is not to be denied that wars and the means of military defence have cost vast amounts of money. So also have litigation and the means deemed requisite for maintaining justice between individuals. It has been estimated that we have in this country, at the present time, thirty thousand lawyers, without including pettifoggers. Allowing each of these to cost the country the average sum of one thousand dollars, and we have the annual cost to the country, for lawyers, thirty millions of dollars. Add to this the cost of legislative halls and legislators for making laws; of court-houses, jails, police offices, judges of the different courts, marshals, sheriffs justices of the peace, constables, clerks, witnesses, &c., employed to apply and enforce the laws when made; the personal loss of time of the different plaintiffs and defendants, the individual anxiety and suffering produced by litigation; add all these together, and I doubt not the result for a single year will somewhat astonish these modern economists. But if all the expenditures of this nature that have been made for the last fifty years, in this individual "war of hate," be added together, we have no doubt a very fruitful text might be obtained for preaching a crusade against law and lawyers! But could any sane man be found to say that, on account of the cost of maintaining them, all laws and lawyers are useless and should be abolished?