At first it thought of taxing all the discontented, and of dividing among them the proceeds of these taxes after having taken its share; which would have been like the method of managing lotteries in our dear Spain.

There are a thousand of you; the State takes a dollar from each one, cunningly steals two hundred and fifty, and then divides up seven hundred and fifty, in greater or smaller sums, among the players.

The worthy Hidalgo, who has received three-quarters of a dollar, forgetting that he has spent a whole one, is wild with joy, and runs to spend his shillings at the tavern.

Something like this once happened in France.

Barbarous as the country of A---- was, however, the government did not trust the stupidity of the inhabitants enough to make them accept such singular protection, and hence this was what it devised: "The country was intersected with roads.