150 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



and it is quite jiossible for these disadvantages to outweigh the advan- 

 tages. The controlling structures have to be maintained, and the 

 restraints they impose have to be borne ; and the evils inflicted by- 

 taxation and by tyranny may become greater than the evils prevented. 

 Where, as in the East, the rapacity of monarchs has sometimes 

 gone to the extent of taking from cultivators so much of their produce 

 as to have afterward to return part for seed, we see exemplified the 

 truth that the agency which maintains order may cause miseries greater 

 than the miseries caused by disorder. The state of Egyj^t under the 

 Romans, who, on the native set of officials, superposed their own set, 

 and who made drafts on the country's resources not for local adminis- 

 tration only but also for imperial administration, furnishes an instance. 

 Beyond the regular taxes there were demands for feeding and clothing 

 the military, wherever quartered ; extra calls were continually made 

 on the people for maintaining public works and subaltern agents ; men 

 in office were themselves so impoverished by exactions that they " as- 

 sumed dishonorable employments or became the slaves of persons in 

 power ; gifts made to the government were soon converted into forced 

 contributions ; and those who purchased immunities from extortions 

 found them disregarded as soon as the sums asked had been received. 

 More marked still were the curses following excessive development of 

 political organization in Gaul during the decline of the Roman Empire : 



So numerous were the receivers in comparison with the payers, and so enor- 

 mous the weight of taxation, that the laborer broke down, the plains became 

 deserts, and woods grew where the plow had been. ... It were impossible 

 to number the officials who were rained upon every province and town. , . . 

 The crack of the lash and the cry of the tortured filled tlie air. The faithful 

 slave was tortured for evidence against his master, tlie wife to depose against 

 her husband, the son against his sire. . . . Not satisfied with the returns of the 

 first enumerators, tliey sent a succession of others, who each swelled the valua- 

 tion as a proof of service done; and so the imposts went on increasing. Yet 

 the number of cattle fell off, and the people died. Nevertheless, the survivors 

 had to pay the taxes of the dead. 



And how literally in this case the benefits were exceeded by the mis- 

 chiefs is shown by the remark that " they fear the enemy less than 

 the tax-gatherer : the truth is, that they fly to the first to avoid the last. 

 Hence, the one unanimous wish of the Roman populace, that it was 

 their lot to live with the barbarian." 



In the same regions during later times the lesson was repeated. 

 While internal peace and its blessings were achieved in mediaeval 

 France as fast as feudal nobles became subordinate to the king while 

 the central power, as it grew stronger, put an end to that primitive 

 j^ractice of a blood-revenge which wreaked itself on any relative of an 

 offender, and made the " truce of God " a needful mitigation of the 

 universal savagery ; yet from this extension of political organization 

 there presently grew up evils as great or greater multiplication of 



