“And are the Mexican cocks benefited?” she asked, in allusion to something they were talking about. “Do the cock-fighters give up their sport on account of this tax?” “The sport is much checked, my dear. The government gets only about 45,000 dollars a year by this tax, so that there cannot be much cock-fighting.” “Well, then, I wish you would put in your advice for a very heavy tax on guillotining. Where is there so barbarous a sport?” “You are for putting a moral power into the hands of government, Marie,— a power of controlling the people’s pursuits and tastes. Is such a power a good?” “Is it not? Cock-fighting may be checked; therefore may the drinking of spirits, and the playing with dice. And no one thinks worse than you of gin and gaming. I am just copying what you say about gin.” “But the same power may tempt the people to game in lotteries, and drive them to engage in smuggling; and tyrannize over them in many ways. When taxes are raised upon what men eat and drink and use, there may be, and there always is, a great inconsistency in the moral lectures that they practically give the people. They say, for instance,—‘You must not use hair-powder or corn; but come and try your luck for a 30,000_l._ prize.’ ‘If you wish for tobacco, you must smuggle it: but we must make you pay for keeping yourself clean with soap, and putting salt into your children’s food, and trying to let light and air enough into your house for them to live by.’” “Well, but this would be abusing their power. Could they not do like the Mexican people—tax bad sports—tax luxuries?” “And who is to decide what sports are bad, and what articles are luxuries? If there is nobody to contend that cock-fighting and bull-baiting are virtuous sports, there are many opinions on fox-hunting, and snipe-shooting, and country fairs, and village dances. And as for luxuries,—where is the line which separates them from necessaries?” “Ah! our washerwoman looked very earnest indeed when she said, ‘I must have my little dish of tea—I am fit for nothing without.’ And I suppose our landlord says the same of his port-wine; and certainly every nobleman thinks he must have men-servants and horses and carriages.” “I do not see, for my part, how government has any more business to decide upon what articles must be made dear to the people, than an emperor has to settle how his subjects shall fasten their shoes.” “Well, but what are they to tax?” “Property. All that government has a right to do in taxation, is to raise what money is necessary; and its main duty is to do it in the fairest proportion possible. It has nothing to do with how people spend the rest of their money, and has no business to alter the prices of things, for the sake of exercising a moral power, or any power.”