[4] The views of Mirza Abu-Talib on this important subject, are
far more enlightened and correct than those of Kerim Khan. "The
public revenue of England," he observes, "is not, as in India,
raised merely from the land, or by duties levied on a few kinds of
merchandise, but almost every article of consumption pays its
portion. The taxes are levied by the authority and decree of
parliament; and are in general so framed _as to bear lightly on
the poor_, and that _every person should pay in proportion to his
income_. Thus bread, meat, and coals, being articles of
indispensable use, are exempt; but spirits, wines, &c., are taxed
very high; and the rich are obliged to pay for every horse, dog,
and man-servant they keep; also for the privilege of throwing
_flour_ on their heads, and having their _arms_ (insignia of the
antiquity and rank of their family) painted on their carriages,
&c. Since the commencement of the present war, a new law has been
passed, compelling every person to pay annually a tenth of his
whole income. Most of the taxes are permanent, but some of them
are changed at the pleasure of parliament. Abu-Talib visited the
country in the first years of the present century, when the
capability of taxation was strained to the utmost, but the words
which we have given in italics, contain the secret which Kerim
failed to detect."

Relieved, it is to be hoped, by this tirade against the ignominious
submission of the Franks to taxation, the Khan resumes the enumeration of
the endless catalogue of wonders which the sights of London presented to
him. On visiting the Polytechnic Institution--"which means, I understand,
a place in which specimens of every science and art are to be seen in some
mode or other, there being no science or art of any other country unknown
here"--he briefly enumerates the oxyhydrogen microscope, "by which water