“Yes, I have had to pay 1_l._ 3_s._ 6_d._ for your serving man’s white head.” “Must I make him leave off powder?” “Not unless you wish to send him to his grave. No, government shall have the advantage of Maynard’s taste in dress as long as the old fellow lives with us. How Mrs. Barton’s head shakes! How triumphant she looks! I am afraid she will grow disloyal, after all. The commissioners are offering her a direct premium on resistance to——” “Ah! to what? To Taplin, not to taxation. I am sure it must be a very bad thing for a government to have such servants as Taplin,—so prying,— so grasping!” “There will be such till people grow as honest about paying their taxes as their other liabilities.” “Stay, ma’am, we have not done with you yet,” said Taplin to Mrs. Barton. “There is a gentleman below, that I find travels for your house,—a commercial traveller, ma’am; 1_l._ 10_s._ is the tax, ma’am, which I hope he brings you orders enough to enable you to pay. I shall by no means give up the claim for the windows, but refer it to the six judges: but I conceive you will hardly contest the traveller.” “If you mean Mr. Taylor, who brought me a message from cousin Becky that she wanted some eau de Cologne, I am happy to tell you that gentleman never rode a mile out of his way for me.” And Mrs. Barton related that Mr. Taylor and her cousin were engaged, and that Mr. Taylor, being a commercial traveller, called on Mrs. Barton as he passed through A——, to give her news of Becky; but she offered to swear that he never took an order for her, or paid her any money, in his life. Some wag had imposed upon Taplin. Everybody laughed. Mrs. Barton had better have stopped here. Emboldened by the success of her eloquence, she went on to complain of the distresses of the times to commercial people, and of the favour shown to the agricultural class over that to which she belonged. She was afraid his Majesty forgot that kings formerly lived upon the land, and at the expense of those who held it. It was quite an innovation, their now living upon their trading subjects. Farmers had no house-tax to pay. There were actually near 137,000 farm-houses in England and Wales exempt from the house-tax. Farmers’ horses were to pay no tax, forsooth; and her friend Mr. Whitford had insured his farm-stock, and been charged nothing for the stamp. If a rich man’s wealth did but happen to be land, he was not charged the inventory and legacy duties; and so it was in these degenerate days, that traders, the most useful set of subjects the king could have—— “You say so because you are a trader, and not a farmer, Mrs. Barton,” observed her friend, Mr. Whitford. “If you had to pay such burdens as I have, or even such a charge as I am here about now——” “Come, let us hear it, Mr. Whitford,” said the Commissioners. “Of all unconscionable things, the surveyor wants to charge me for my market-cart.” “Because you use it to ride in, I suppose?”