is to render the condition of the poor more tolerable,
who cannot pay for themselves.

Moreover, all democratic communities are agitated by an ill-defined
excitement and by a kind of feverish impatience, that engender a
multitude of innovations, almost all of which are attended with expense.

In monarchies and aristocracies the natural taste which the rulers have
for power and for renown is stimulated by the promptings of ambition,
and they are frequently incited by these temptations to very costly
undertakings. In democracies, where the rulers labor under privations,
they can only be courted by such means as improve their well-being, and
these improvements cannot take place without a sacrifice of money. When
a people begins to reflect upon its situation, it discovers a multitude
of wants to which it had not before been subject, and to satisfy these
exigencies recourse must be had to the coffers of the State. Hence it
arises that the public charges increase in proportion as civilization
spreads, and that imposts are augmented as knowledge pervades the
community.

The last cause which frequently renders a democratic government
dearer than any other is, that a democracy does not always succeed in
moderating its expenditure, because it does not understand the art of
being economical. As the designs which it entertains are frequently
changed, and the agents of those designs are still more frequently
removed, its undertakings are often ill conducted or left unfinished: in
the former case the State spends sums out of all proportion to the end
which it proposes to accomplish; in the second, the expense itself is
unprofitable. *f

[Footnote f: The gross receipts of the Treasury of the United States in
1832 were about $28,000,000; in 1870 they had risen to $411,000,000. The
gross expenditure in 1832 was $30,000,000; in 1870, $309,000,000.]

Tendencies Of The American Democracy As Regards The Salaries Of Public
Officers

In the democracies those who establish high salaries have no chance of
profiting by them--Tendency of the American democracy to increase
the salaries of subordinate officers and to lower those of the more
important functionaries--Reason of this--Comparative statement of the
salaries of public officers in the United States and in France.

There is a powerful reason which usually induces democracies to
economize upon the salaries of public officers. As the number of
citizens who dispense the remuneration i