COUNTRY LIFE. 135 



paid by the fanner before they are again returned to him 

 in exchange for his produce. Other taxes in the same 

 way go to pay for works of local benefit. Half the indi- 

 rect taxation being absorbed in payment of the public 

 debt, which belongs for the most part to the landed pro- 

 prietors, it also in a great measure comes back to the 

 country residents. While a third, at least, of the French 

 budget finds its way to Paris, and another third to the 

 provincial towns, three-fourths of the public expenditure 

 in England is expended in the country, and, with the 

 incomes of proprietors and farmers, contributes to dif- 

 fuse there abundance and life. 



We, alas ! are far from such a state of things ; let us 

 hope that it will be brought about by degrees. Of late, 

 everything seems tending towards it. The overcrowd- 

 ing of the wealthy class in the towns, the uncertainty of 

 the careers they there come to pursue, the feverish air they 

 breathe, all tend to cause disappointed ambition and tired 

 hopes to revert to country life. Those who have enough 

 to keep them comfortably in the country are coming to 

 the conclusion, that the safest and best course is to reside 

 there ; and those who do not see this, are very nearly being 

 forced to it by the constantly increasing difficulty of find- 

 ing an opening in the town. Besides which, there is a 

 new element at work tending to effect an entire change 

 in country life : improved means of communication, and 

 especially the extension of railways, by shortening dis- 

 tances, make a constant residence in the country compa- 

 tible with the pleasures of society, and prevent it inter- 

 fering with a man's public importance, cultivation of 

 mind, or the amusements of town life. This will be the 

 beginning of a healthy revolution in favour of our deserted 

 fields. We shall probably never be so rural in our habits 

 as the English ; our towns will never, like theirs, become 



