The figures from Bremen are very favorable. The incomes subject to taxation amounted, in 1847, to 71.6 thalers per capita; in 1869, to 131.2. The incomes subject to taxation in class No. 1, that is from 250 to 399 thalers, increased 78 per cent.; in class No. 2, 400 to 499 thalers, 45 per cent.; in class No. 3, 500 thalers and more, by 57 per cent. The average income of the third class amounted, in 1847-50, to 1,952 thalers; 1866-69, to 2,439 thalers. In 1848, there were, of estates of over 3,000 thalers subject to taxation, only 38 to every 1,000 inhabitants; in 1866, 49. (Jahrb. f. amtl. Statistik Bremens, 1871, Heft 2, p. 185 seq.)] BOOK IV. CONSUMPTION OF GOODS. CHAPTER I. CONSUMPTION OF GOODS IN GENERAL. SECTION CCVI. NATURE AND KINDS OF CONSUMPTION. As it is as little in the power of man to destroy matter as it is to create it, we mean by the consumption of goods, in the broad sense of the word, the abolition of or the doing away with an utility without any regard to the question whether another higher utility takes its place; in its narrower sense (consumption proper), a decrease of resources of any kind. Consumption is the counterpart of production (§ 30), the top of the tree of which production is the roots, and the circulation and distribution of goods the trunk. (_A. Walker._) There is, also, what Riedel calls immaterial consumption, as when a utility disappears, either because the want itself to which it ministers disappears or because views have changed as to the means to be employed towards its satisfaction.[206-1] [Footnote 206-1: Diminutions of value, such, for instance, as an almanac, a newspaper, etc., undergoes simply from the appearance of the next years' etc.; of a shield or a part of an officer's uniform with the initials of the reigning sovereign, only because of the fact of a new succession to the throne. A boot or a glove loses a great part of its value when its mate is destroyed. (_Rau_, Lehrbuch, § 319.)] SECTION CCVII. NATURE AND KIND OF CONSUMPTION.--THE MOST USUAL KIND. The commonest kind of consumption is that caused by the use of a thing, or by the employing of it for the purpose of acquisition or of enjoyment.[207-1] From time immemorial, enjoyment-consumption has been, preponderantly, the affair of women, as acquisition-consumption has been the business of men.[207-2] Other circumstances being equal, the degree or extent of consumption by use (use-consumption) is determined by national character. Thus, for instance, the cleanliness and love of order characteristic of the Dutch have contributed greatly to the long preservation in good condition of their dwellings and household articles.[207-3]