habitants. Thus measured, there would seem to be a falling off in the
general well-being of the people of Amiens since 1883. For, while the
pressure _per capita_ of the octroi is much greater than it was in 1870,
the actual receipts from the _octroi_ were less with a population of
74,000 in 1886, than they were in 1883. In 1883 the _octroi_ yielded
1,533,140 francs. In 1886 it yielded only 1,498,459 francs. The falling
off was in the receipts from beverages, from provisions, from forage,
and from building materials. The tariff of the _octroi_ meanwhile has
remained substantially without change from 1873 to the present time. It
is an expensive tax to collect, the costs of collection in 1886
amounting to 11.85 per cent. of the receipts.

Adding together now the receipts from the direct taxes and the _octroi_
of Amiens in 1886, we have a sum of 2,683,183 francs, or in round
numbers about 1,100,000 francs more than in 1870. But while, as I have
stated, in 1870 the receipts equalled and balanced the expenses of the
municipal government, this is no longer the case.

In 1886 Amiens, with an income of 2,683,183 francs, spent 4,162,294
francs, giving an average municipal outlay of 56 fr. 10 c. _per capita_
and an excess of expenditure over revenue of no less than 1,479,111
francs, or very nearly the total income and outlay of the city under the
Empire. No wonder that the public debt of the department of the Somme,
of which Amiens is the capital, seems in 1886 to have amounted to
18,303,496 francs! What inequalities of pressure upon the people of the
department this involves may be estimated from the fact that, while
there are in the Somme 836 communes, only 404, or less than half of
these communes, are authorised to raise money by loans, and one-eighth
of them to raise money by _octrois_. Yet we are constantly told that all
inequalities and privileges were abolished throughout France by a stroke
of the pen in the _annus mirabilis_ 1789![5] The taxation in 20 communes
is estimated at 15 centimes, or less; in 87, at from 15 to 30; in 268,
at from 31 to 50; in 428, at from 51 to 100; and in 33, at 100 centimes
and upwards. These are the communal taxes. To these must be added 51
centimes for the departmental taxes, ordinary and extraordinary; 2
centimes for the land-tax; 19 centimes for the personal tax and taxes
on personal property; 18.8 centimes for the doors and windows tax; and
39.6 centimes for licences. For Amiens these fract