In England ecclesiastical incomes range between eighty pounds a year and fifteen thousand. Incomes of two or three hundred a year are common, and many exceed seven or eight. In fact, the Church answers with tolerable exactness to other liberal professions, such as medicine, the law, and painting. A splendidly successful lawyer, doctor, or painter has the income of the Archbishop of York, and there may be one in each generation with that of Canterbury, whilst the unsuccessful layman may equal the earnings of a small incumbent or a poor curate, and between the two we find all the degrees. It is more difficult, however, for an energetic man to make his own way in the Church than in more open professions. [Sidenote: The Army a Bachelor’s Profession.] The army, in both countries, is a poor profession except in the highest grades. It is essentially a bachelor’s profession. In France, officers are not permitted to marry any woman who has less than a certain dowry, and in England marriage is restricted to a few amongst the private soldiers.[86] Here we have an approach to the enforced celibacy of the Roman priesthood. [Sidenote: Public Offices in France and England.] [Sidenote: The Magistracy.] Almost all public offices in France are paid, but ill paid. In England they are either well paid or gratuitous. English Members of Parliament, in both houses, are unpaid; in France they receive a moderate salary. In England magistrates (except a small special class) are unpaid; in France they all receive a few thousand francs a year. On the other hand, English judges are splendidly paid in comparison with French judges, even when they sit only in the County Courts. The magistracy, in France, is so little lucrative that judicial functions usually imply private means. [Sidenote: Trade.] The ordinary trades are perhaps equally lucrative in the two countries, and, with the exception of old landowners, most of the prosperous people are either tradesmen or the descendants of tradesmen. An antiquary in a certain neighbourhood told me that the local aristocracy there was descended, almost exclusively, from tanners of the Middle Ages. In the wine districts gold is chiefly consolidated, directly or indirectly, from grape-juice, as in Lancashire it is a concentrated form of cotton, and in Lyons of silk. Many fine new houses have been built in France since the Empire, and almost invariably by tradesmen. [Sidenote: The English Manufacturing District.] [Sidenote: Manchester.] [Sidenote: A Plutocratic Atmosphere.]