the law should cover also this hiatus.
There is no fundamental objection to this.

One single fact will throw much light on the considerable burdens of
which the county communities will be relieved when the care of their
poor will pass, according to this bill, to the community of the State.
I have been unable to ascertain the number of persons to whom
assistance is given in the empire or in the kingdom of Prussia, and
even less to discover the amount of money spent for this purpose. In
the country, and elsewhere, private charity and public help are so
intermingled that it is impossible to separate them, or to keep
accurate accounts. The one hundred and seventy cities, however, which
have more than ten thousand inhabitants expend on the average four
marks per capita for the care of their poor. This item varies between
0.63 mark and 12.84 marks--a great variation as you see. The most
remarkable results are found where the majority of laborers are banded
together in unions or similar associations. It would be natural to
think that places like Oberneunkirchen and Duttweiler with large
factory populations would have a very large budget for the poor; and
that Berlin, which is only in part an industrial centre, would be an
average locality, for our purposes, if its finances were well managed.
As a matter of fact it pays far more than the average for the care of
its poor without doing this exceptionally well. Anyone who is
interested in private charities, and cares to visit the poor of
Berlin, will be convinced of their pitiful condition.

Nevertheless, the Berlin budget for the poor amounts to 5,000,000
marks--these are the latest figures--and for the care of the sick poor
to 1,900,000 marks. Why these two items should be separated I do not
know. Together, therefore, they amount to about 7,000,000 marks, or 7
marks per capita, while the average of the large cities is 4 marks. If
such a poor-tax of 7 marks per capita were extended to the whole
empire, it would yield 300,000,000 marks; and if the direct taxes of
Berlin, amounting to 23 marks per capita, were levied on the empire,
we should receive more than one milliard marks in direct taxes,
including those on rents and incomes. Fortunately not all the people
of the empire are living under a liberal ring, and least of all the
inhabitants of cities where the majority of the workingmen have joined
unions or similar associations. We have discovered the remarkable fact
that Ober