Under such circumstances, it is not strange there were not enough men left in the country to till the soil. Women had to do that work, and in some places there were not women enough. Consequently the King issued an order to take a hundred of the strongest boys from the Potsdam Orphan Asylum, and set them at work in these depopulated localities. He devised still other means to make up this lack of men. He released Prussians from the army, filled their places with foreign recruits, and then ordered that as few Prussians as possible should be enlisted until the deficiency was made good. The number thus released was thirty thousand seven hundred and eighty. Every effort was made to assist them in the habits of self-reliance and industrial life, and orders were also issued that soldiers in such districts should be allowed to marry without a license from the authorities. Many buildings abandoned by their owners were going to ruin, and more than thirteen thousand houses in Prussia were destroyed. Fertile fields after the war looked like a barren wilderness, for there was a lack of seed-corn and products, and implements of every kind needed to put them in good condition again. Gentry and peasants alike had been plundered by so many armies, and had lost so much by contributions and confiscations, that they were utterly destitute. The enemy had left them nothing but their lives. The country was not the only sufferer. Prosperity was ruined and trade was dead in the cities. There was no longer any regard for habits of order, and the police administration was wretched. The courts of justice and financial institutions had been reduced to inaction by these frequent invasions of the enemy. The silence of the laws had made the people reckless and produced in them an uncontrollable greed of gain. Nobles, merchants, farmers, and laborers raised the prices of their commodities, and their demands were exorbitant beyond belief. The situation called for drastic remedies, and the King, who was greatly concerned over the country’s condition, did not hesitate to apply them in a practical way. He realized that the Provinces could not recover unaided, and so he decided to help them. By his orders Silesia had to contribute three million; Pomerania and Neumark, one million four hundred thousand; the Electorate, seven hundred thousand; the Duchy of Cleve, one hundred thousand, and the province of Prussia, eight hundred thousand thalers. Beside this, he distributed among the most needy localities twenty-five thousand bushels of rye and meal, and seventeen thousand bushels of oats taken from the public storehouses. He went even further than this. He reduced the army, and distributed thirty-five thousand horses among the peasants and gentry. In those parts of the country which had suffered most severely during the war, particularly Crossen, Hohenstein, and Halberstadt, the taxes were reduced one-half. In Silesia the payment of