Every township lives by itself, and for itself; it is an isolated body, which has arms to work, and a belly to fill.

The cultivator of the land is everything, as was the case in the Middle Ages.

There is neither trade, nor manufactures, nor business on any extended scale, nor movement of ideas, nor political life, nor any of those powerful bonds which, in well-governed countries, link the provincial towns to the capital, as the members to the heart.
If there be a capital for these poor people, it is Paradise.

They believe in it fervently, and strive to attain it with all their might.
The very peasant who grudges the State two crowns for his hearth-tax, willingly pays two and a half to have _Viva Maria_ scrawled over his door.

Another complains of the L3 per month paid to the Government official, without a murmur at the thirty priests supported by the township.