'President? what does that signify? Chief of the State--Emperor; ah! those were the good times here in Amiens, Monsieur, not as it is to-day with the eternal debts that M. Dauphin made us a present of. Eh! an old hypocrite that man is! and with these _centimes additionnels_ that never end! And then these water-metres! Eh! that is a pretty invention to make water as dear as wine at Amiens, and yet, God knows, wine is not too cheap, with the octroi of Amiens! It is worse than at Paris! Call him what you like, Monsieur, _c'est Boulanger qu'il nous faut_--that is to say, we must have a man at Paris. And you will see he is the man; all the mothers of soldiers will tell you that!' From the point of view of the municipal finances, the 'good old times' of the Empire may well have a charm for the taxpayers of Amiens. In 1870 Amiens, with 61,063 inhabitants, raised and spent a municipal revenue of rather more than a million and a half of francs, or, in round numbers, about 25 francs, or 20 shillings, _per capita_ of the population. A public loan, made in 1854, had been almost wholly paid off, and the city treasury still held 600,000 francs of a loan of 1,600,000 francs made in 1862 for certain public improvements. The municipal government cost 372,000 francs, and 180,000 francs were spent on the public schools. Of the municipal income, 987,802 francs were derived from four forms of direct taxation, and 770,000 francs from the _octroi_. This gave an average of a little less than 13 francs _per capita_ as the burden of the _octroi_ upon the population. In 1886 the population had increased to 74,000. The direct taxes brought in 1,184,724 francs, and the _octroi_, 1,498,459, making the average burden of the _octroi per capita_ 20 fr. 20 c., or an increase of about 50 per cent. in the pressure of that form of tax upon the population, as compared with 1870. As the _octroi_ is imposed upon food and beverages of all kinds--fuel, forage, and building materials--this tax is regarded in France as a measure for estimating the general well-being of the inhabitants. Thus measured, there would seem to be a falling off in the general well-being of the people of Amiens since 1883. For, while the pressure _per capita_ of the octroi is much greater than it was in 1870, the actual receipts from the _octroi_ were less with a population of 74,000 in 1886, than they were in 1883. In 1883 the _octroi_ yielded 1,533,140 francs. In 1886 it yielded only 1,498,459 francs. The falling off was in the receipts from beverages, from provisions, from forage, and from building materials. The tariff of the _octroi_ meanwhile has remained substantially without change from 1873 to the present time. It is an expensive tax to collect, the costs of collection in 1886 amounting to 11.85 per cent. of the receipts.