AGKICULTTJRE ON THE RHINE. 237 



of two pounds annually, allows a poorer class of scholars 

 to be educated almost without fees. 



The rates levied for making roads do not exempt those 

 who use them from paying toll. The gates are usually 

 met with at distances of 1 German or 4| English mil-es 

 apart, and the toll on a two-horsed vehicle is generally 

 about twopence. In the towns a much higher toll is 

 commonly levied for paving-money. Roads between 

 villages are made by aid of local contributions, and are 

 kept in repair by the respective villages. The poor are also 

 maintained by their fellow-villagers under various local 

 arrangements, but food is happily not too dear anywhere 

 on the Rhine to render it impracticable for the aged and 

 even the partially infirm to earn in some manner their 

 daily bread, without the aid of workhouses. There is a 

 great deal of home-relief distributed in the towns by the 

 overseers, partly from the voluntary contributions at 

 churches, and partly derived from sums drawn from the 

 revenues of the respective towns. A pauper is, how- 

 ever, unhesitatingly i-emoved to his parish, and men- 

 dicants are in general not tolerated. 



The prisons are also a charge on the general revenue. 

 Their cost is diminished by a good system of prison- 

 labour, out of the proceeds of which, too, a small fund is 

 provided for discharged prisoners, a regulation which has 

 a most salutary effect. Excellent prison discipline is 

 established at Cologne and at Eberbach in the Rhinegau, 

 at which places the system of secondary punishments is 

 admirable. The charge for the police establishments is 

 one of the heaviest, and in its present shape the police 

 system is the most doubtful, as to any good resulting 

 from it, of all the German institutions. 



