468 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



wliich I was called in to settle with the calipers. The iinsuspect- 

 ing Irishmen usually entered keenly into the debate, and before 

 the little drama had been finished, were eagerly betting on the 

 sizes of their own heads, and begging to have their wagers deter- 

 mined in the same manner." 



The figures gathered in this way from the schools and the 

 armies have a peculiar value. They represent all classes of the 

 population, but more especially the peasantry in all the nooks and 

 corners of Europe wherever the long arm of the Polizei Staat 

 reaches. The upper classes are less fully represented oftentimes, 

 since they attend private schools or are better able to evade the 

 military service by money payment or by educational test. This 

 simplifies the matter, since it is the proletariat which alone 

 clearly reflects the influence of race or of environment. They are 

 the ones we wish to study. In this sense the observations upon 

 these populations may aid the sociologist or the historian ; for the 

 greatest obstacle, heretofore, to the prosecution of the half -written 

 history of the common people has been the lack of proper raw 

 materials. There is a mine of information here which has barely 

 been opened to view on the surface. 



PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. 



By DAVID A. WELLS, LL.D., D.C.L., 



COEKE8PONDANT DE l'iNSTITUT DE TEAKCE, ETC, 



VI. THE SPHERE OF TAXATION PECULIAR TO THE FEDERAL 

 GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES. 



THE United States presents the curious anomaly of a great 

 nation existing under two systems, or dual forms of govern- 

 ment ; each having a sphere of action peculiar to itself, and both 

 exercising the general functions of government, namely: the 

 executive, the legislative, and the judicial. These two are the 

 Federal or national Government, existing in virtue of an agree- 

 ment of union entered into originally by thirteen separate and 

 independent States, and known as the Federal Constitution ; and 

 next, a system of State or divisional governments, existing in vir- 

 tue of certain original powers retained by the independent and 

 sovereign parties to the above agreement, and not delegated by 

 them, in entering the Federal Union, to any other or higher 

 sovereignty. At the same time a concession of power to tax or 

 compel contributions from persons, property, and business by 

 each of these two forms of government, in order to defray their 

 necessary expenditures, was obviously essential to their existence 

 and continuance, and was so recognized from the first inception 



