a pension, pensions being for actual military service constitutional, and are in the Southern States expressly permitted to Confederate soldiers and their families--despite the implied prohibition of the Fourteenth Amendment. The last form of taxation, that of an excise upon licenses or trades, is most usual in the South. An increasing number of trades are thus being taxed or regulated. Sometimes the taxation is put under the guise of a fee for examination and licensing, sometimes plainly as an excise tax. Undoubtedly such taxation is against all the history of our legislation demanding complete freedom of labor and trade. Nevertheless, it has not been held unconstitutional by the States except, of course, when touching a trade which is interstate commerce, though the _examination_ occasionally has been. Such taxation has not yet become popular in the North, except definitely for the purpose of examination and license; but it is almost universal in the South, many States indeed providing by their constitution or laws that all trades and callings may be thus taxed. These taxes may be arbitrary in amount, but are sometimes graded according to the amount of business done. Such legislation has been sustained in so far as it is a tax or a license imposed for protecting the public health in a reasonable manner; thus, doctors, plumbers, nurses, dentists, etc., have been submitted to such regulation, but in the case of blacksmiths its constitutionality was in one State denied, and the law as to barbers in several States annulled. Nevertheless, it will always be a popular method of raising money in the poorer States, where land already bears its full burden and little personal property can be found.