acquired. The income, or property tax, as it is now called, completes the system of taxation which is now relied upon to supply the varying but always enormous wants of Great Britain. Through these various sources during the past year the English Government has collected an income of three hundred and fifty million dollars--about the same it obtained through the same channels from a population of thirteen million inhabitants in the closing years of the war with Napoleon. With the same system of taxation, our own Government has, during the past year, obtained an income of one hundred and eleven million dollars. If we examine particularly the sources of the English revenue at these two epochs, and compare them with the corresponding branches of taxation with us, we find that in the year closing in 1815, the receipts from customs amounted to about fifty-six million dollars--a sum, it will be noticed, considerably less than that drawn from the same source in this country for the past year, but only about half the amount derived from customs in Great Britain in the year ending September, 1863. From the property tax was obtained about seventy-five million dollars--the modified form of this tax now in use in Great Britain produces about fifty million dollars per annum. Either of these sums is probably much larger than it would be advisable to attempt to produce by a direct tax in this country. Stamps, in 1815, yielded an income of thirty million dollars. During the past year this simple and productive source of revenue produced in Great Britain forty-five million dollars. It seems probable that this species of tax might be extended in this country much farther than it now is, without oppression to the people, and with a handsome increase of the revenue. But the excise has ever been the most productive fountain of revenue in Great Britain. The income from this tax in that country, during the year ending September, 1863, was eighty-four million dollars. In the year 1815, when, on account of the smaller population, the other sources of revenue were less productive than at the present day, the excise yielded an income of not less than a hundred and thirty-five million dollars. It is worthy of notice that, of this income, the tax upon the various forms of spirituous liquors supplied a large element. English spirits, which, in the experiment of 1736, it had been found could not carry a tax of five dollars per gallon, it was now found easily bore the more moderate but still large tax of ten shillings sixpence sterling. Aside from this tax was the duty on beer, cider, and malt, the last of which alone yielded an income of thirteen million dollars annually. * * * * *