Leicestershire 700 100 100 0 0 Warwickshire 885 126-3/7 128 12 6 Worcestershire 738 105-3/7 101 5 7 Gloucestershire 1,224 174-6/7 179 11 8 Somerset 1,640 234-2/7 227 10 4 It is remarkable, not only for this agreement _inter se_, but also for the sharp contrast it presents to the groups of counties, lying respectively to the south-east and the north-west of it. The former approximates a rate twice as high, namely, _two_-sevenths of a pound to the square mile: Square Miles (At 2/7) Actual Sum £ £ s d Buckinghamshire 745 212-3/7 204 14 7 Oxfordshire 756 216 239 9 3 Berkshire 722 206-2/7 200 1 3 Wiltshire 1,354 386-6/7 388 13 0 Taking this group as a whole, it paid £1,032 18s 1d, a curiously close approximation to the £1,021-4/7 which my suggested rate of 2/7 would give. Middlesex was so exceptional a county, that one hardly likes to include it, but there also the rate was a little over two-sevenths. On the other hand, the counties to the north-west of what I have termed the Midland group are assessed at a rate singularly low. Nottingham and Derby, with a joint area of 1,855 miles, contributed only £108 8s 6d, representing one-seventeenth;[174] while Staffordshire, with its 1,169 miles, is found paying £44 0s 11d, a rate scarcely more than one twenty-seventh. Passing to the opposite corner of the realm, we have Kent, always a wealthy county, assessed at the phenomenally low rate of about one-fifteenth (£105 2s 10d, as against 1,555 miles), rather less than half that of Essex to its north, and Sussex to its west.