^S4 Government, Laws, [Part II. 



cheap. In short, there is no excise here ; no property 

 tax; no assessed taxes. We have no such men here 

 as Chiddel and Billy Tovery to come and take our 

 money from us. No window peepers. No spies to 

 keep a look-out as to our carriages and horses and 

 dogs. Our dogs that came from Botley now run about 

 free from the spying of tax-gatherers. We may wear 

 hair-powder if we like without paying for it, and a boy 

 in our houses may whet our knives without our paying 

 two pounds a year for it. 



428. But, then, we have not the honour of being 

 covered over with the dust, kicked up by the horses 

 and raised by the carriage-wheels of such men as Old 

 George Rose and Old Garnier, each of whom has 

 pocketted more than three hundred thousand pounds of 

 the public, that is to say, the people's money. There 

 are no such men here. Those who receive public mo- 

 ney here, do something for it. They earn it. They 

 are no richer than other people. The Judges here are 

 plain dressed men. They go about with no sort of 

 parade. They are dressed, on the Bench, like other 

 men. The lawyers the same. Here are no black 

 gowns and scarlet gowns and big foolish-looking wigs. 

 Yet, in the whole world, there is not so well-behaved 

 so orderly, so steady a people ; a people so obedient to 

 the laiv. But, it is the law only that they will boiv tq. 

 They will bow to nothing else. And, they bow with 

 reverence to the law, because they know it to be just, 

 and because it is made by men, Avhom they have all 

 had a hand in choosing. 



429. And, then, think of the tithes ! I have talked 

 to several fanners here about the tithes in England, and, 

 they laugh. They sometimes almost make me angry ; 

 for they seem, at last, not to believe what I say, when 

 I tell them, that the English farmer gives, and is com- 

 pelled to give, the Parson a tenth part of his whole 

 crop and of his fruit and milk and eggs and calves and 

 lambs and pigs and wool and honey. They cannot 

 believe this. They treat it as a sort of romance. I 

 sometimes almost wish them to be farmers in England. 

 I said to a neighbour the other day, in half anger : " i 

 '^ wish your farm were at Botley. There is a fellow 



