But if the proletaire does not fast to feed Caesar, what will
Caesar eat? And if the poor man does not cut his cloak to cover
Caesar's nudity, what will Caesar wear?
That is the question, the inevitable question, the question to be
solved.
M. Chevalier, then, having asked himself as his sixth question
whether our taxation laws have the character of sumptuary laws,
has answered: No, our taxation laws have not the character of
sumptuary laws. M. Chevalier might have added--and it would have
been both new and true-- that that is the best thing about our
taxation laws. But M. Chevalier, who, whatever he may do, always
retains some of the old leaven of radicalism, has preferred to
declaim against luxury, whereby he could not compromise himself
with any party. "If in Paris," he cries, "the tax collected from
meat should be laid upon private carriages, saddle- horses and
carriage-horses, servants, and dogs, it would be a perfectly
equitable operation."
Does M. Chevalier, then, sit in the College of France to expound
the politics of Masaniello? I have seen the dogs at Basle
wearing the treasury badge upon their necks as a sign that they
had been taxed, and I looked upon the tax on dogs, in a country
where taxation is almost nothing, as rather a moral lesson and a
hygienic precaution than a source of revenue.
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