Observe that, as the tax-payer’s poll-tax, assessed according to the assessment for other taxes, was always higher in comparison than the poll-tax of the privileged class, inequality re-appeared even under the form which seemed most to exclude it. Note (XXXV.)--Page 76, line 14. ON THE SAME SUBJECT. I find in a draft edict of 1764, the aim of which is to equalise taxation, all sorts of provisions, the object of which is to preserve exceptional advantages to the privileged classes, in the mode of levy: among these I find that all steps for the purpose of determining, in their case, the value of the assessable property, must be taken in their presence or that of their proxies. Note (XXXVI.)--Page 76, line 27. ADMISSION BY THE GOVERNMENT OF THE ADVANTAGES ENJOYED BY THE PRIVILEGED CLASSES IN THE ASSESSMENT EVEN OF GENERAL TAXES. ‘I see,’ writes the Minister, in 1766, ‘that the portion of the taxes most difficult to levy is always that due from the noble and privileged classes, from the consideration the tax-collectors feel themselves bound to show such persons; in consequence of which long-standing arrears of far too great an amount will be found due on their poll-tax and their “twentieths”’ (the tax which they paid in common with the rest of the community). Note (XXXVII.)--Page 85, line 7. In Arthur Young’s Travels, in 1789, is a little picture in which the contrast of the systems of the two countries is so well painted, and so happily introduced, that I cannot resist the temptation of citing it. Young, travelling through France during the first excitement caused by the taking of the Bastille, is arrested in a certain village by a crowd, who, seeing him without a cockade, wish to put him in prison. Young contrives to extricate himself by this speech:-- ‘It has been announced, gentlemen, that the taxes are to be paid as they have been hitherto. Certainly, the taxes ought to be paid, but _not_ as they have been hitherto. They ought to be paid as they are in England. We have many taxes there which you are free from; but the _Tiers-Etat_--the people--does not pay them: they fall entirely on the rich. Thus, in England, every window is taxed; but the man with only six windows to his house does not pay anything for them. A nobleman pays his twentieths[140] and his King’s-taxes, but the poor proprietor pays nothing on his little garden. The rich man pays for his horses, carriages and servants--he pays even for a licence to shoot his own partridges; the poor man is free from all these burdens. Nay, more, in England we have a tax paid by the rich to help the poor! So that, I say, if taxes are still to be paid, they should be paid differently. The English plan is far the better one.’ ‘As my bad French,’ adds Young, ‘was much on a par with their patois, they understood me perfectly.’ Note (XXXVIII.)--Page 86, line 24.