EXAMINATIONS FOR THE PUBLIC SERVICE. 220 failed either in arithmetic or spelling; some, of course, in other subjects also. It may therefore be said that more than 2000 persons deficient in the ordinary rudiments of a good education have been nominated to the Civil Service in six years, and excluded by the examination. During the same period, about 600 of those nominated were ineligible on account of age, health, or character. In comparing the number of certificates granted with the number of rejections in each year, it appears that the proportion of the latter has diminished in the latter years. young, in the hope of rising gradually to its higher Though the new system has not yet been long enough in operation to give sufficient grounds from experience for pronouncing a strong opinion, the commissioners do not hesitate to declare in their latest report that competitive examinations, combined with proper conditions as to age, health, and character, and with the check of a period of probation, and with promotion by merit from class to class, is the best mode of providing for the public service. Up to 1859, the far greater proportion of all appointments made under the new system has been made by nomination of a single person followed by a test examination. But the experience had in the working of the system has convinced the commissioners and the parliamentary committee of the wisdom of advancing in the direction of competition. The minimum standard is difficult to maintain. It causes delay and inconvenience by the rejection of candidates, and the necessity of providing others. The rejections throw unpleasant discredit on the patron, and if frequent, it is ascribed not to the unfitness of the candidates, but to the standard being fixed too high. The candidate is aggrieved at the loss of an appointment which he had looked on as his own, and the patron is likely to share the feeling. In the competitive system, these evils do not exist. The number of competitors will itself keep up the standard; the candidate is not rejected as unfit, but only gives way to one fitter; and the standard cannot be said to be fixed too high, for the fact of candidates coming forward shews that the prize is worth the trouble of attainment. On these grounds, the commissioners recommend the gradual introduction of open competitive examinations into all the departments of the service, but in the meantime The objections which have been urged on the think it a safer course to continue and extend the other hand are mainly reducible to the two which system of limited competition. Experience, however, follow. It is said, in the first place, that in comhas shewn that the latter is often a system of competitive examinations too much credit is given to petition more in name than in reality, and that some conditions are requisite to make it effective. In 1859, 1107 persons were nominated to compete for 258 situations; of these, only 397 were competent, the remaining 710 being wholly unfit for any appointment. The real competition took place between 397 persons. The experience of 1860 confirms this view. In a competition for 42 clerkships at the Admiralty, of 66 candidates, only 24 were competent, being less than the number of situations; so that competition in that case would have given worse results than a simple test examination. With the view of rendering it more effective, the parliamentary committee of 1859 have recommended some modifications in the system, which the commissioners intend to carry out. In future, no candidate will be admitted to enter into the competition who has not previously passed the test of fitness; and the competition for each vacancy will take place among at least five of such qualified persons. The test examination will be mainly confined to writing, spelling, arithmetic, and making a précis of a given set of papers. It is at the same time further recommended that the experiment of open competition, as tried in the Indian Civil Service, be from time to time repeated in other departments. The mode of making the appointments to the Civil Service has of late years been much discussed, and the permanent nature of the appointments makes the question one of much importance. The members of this service remaining in office through all political changes, and aiding each minister in turn by their knowledge of business and of official details, form, in fact, a class of professional public servants, entering their profession as others do while scholastic requirements which are not required for the service. To this it is replied, that persons being appointed in early life, not as having learned, but in order to learn, their profession, the only thing by which the best candidates can be discriminated is their proficiency in the ordinary branches of a liberal education; further, that due weight is always given to acquirements that are strictly practical-writing, arithmetic, spelling, English composition, and the power of framing a précis of a given set of papers, so that whatever be the scholastic requirements of the successful candidate, there is enough of the practical to qualify him for his office; and lastly, that examinations in language, literature, and science are extremely useful in ascertaining the relative ability, industry, and cultivation of the candidates, and that it is as affording evidence of these that they are principally regarded. It is contended, in the second place, that there are very important moral qualities which are not taken into account in a competitive examination. This must be at once admitted, for although such qualities as perseverance and energy may to some extent be indicated by superiority of acquirements, there are others, such as judgment, discretion, fidelity, strength of will, regarding which no certain conclusions can be drawn. It has, however, been justly observed, that this class of qualities can be shewn only by conduct, and that the early age at which the appointments are made will have rarely afforded sufficient opportunities for giving proof of them; to which it may be added, that the previous conduct and disposition of candidates is rarely known to the head of the department or other authority who makes the EXANTHEMATA-EXCHANGE. appointment. If these qualities are not tested by competitive examinations, neither were they tested under the system previously in existence; and the objection, therefore, apparently amounts to this, that having the means of testing the intellectual qualities and acquirements of the candidate, we ought to abandon it because it does not include all the moral qualities, while at the same time there is no satisfactory mode of testing the latter. It is obvious that whenever several persons apply for the same thing, there must be competition in one way or other: it will be either in the way of influence in which case a person is selected not because he is the fitter man, but to gratify some one else or by testimonials, which is not altogether satisfactory. The remaining plan is competition by examination. It is worthy of remark, that besides its other advantages, the latter gives an impetus to education through the whole country, stimulates exertion, and encourages habits of industry-habits which, once acquired, remain, and become applicable to the public service. EXANTHE MATA (from a Greek verb, to effloresce, or come out in a rash), a class of febrile diseases (see FEVER) attended by distinctive eruptions on the skin, appearing at a definite period, and running a recognisable course. To this class belong small-pox, chicken-pox, measles, scarlet fever, and, according to some authorities, plague, typhus, erysipelas, &c. EXARCH was the title first conferred by Justinian on his commander-in-chief and vicegerent in Italy. The conquest of Italy by the Goths in the early part of the 6th c. was a severe blow to the Byzantine pride; and Justinian determined to wipe out the disgrace, and recover the imperial territories. The execution of this project was intrusted at first to Belisarius (q. v.), and afterwards to Narses (q. v.), by whom the reconquest of Italy was effected. The latter was the first who bore the title of exarch; and the district over which he ruled was called the Exarchate. The seat of the exarchs was Ravenna, the different towns and territories belonging to them being governed by subordinate rulers, styled Duces or Dukes. The extent of the exarchate, how ever, was gradually diminished, until it embraced only the country about Ravenna, the present Romagna, and the coasts of Rimini as far as Ancona. This was brought about partly by the conquests of the Longobards, partly by the dukes of Venice and Naples making themselves independent. In the year 728, even this small portion fell, for a short time, into the hands of the Longobards. In 752, Astulf, or Astolphus, king of the Longobards, put an end to the Byzantine rule at Ravenna; but in 755, he was compelled to resign the exarchate to Pepin the Less, king of the Franks, who gave it over to the Bishop of Rome, Stephanus II.-In the Christian Church, exarch was originally a title of the bishops, afterwards of a bishop who presided over several others—a primate. It was borne by the bishops of Alexandria, Antioch, Ephesus, Cæsarea, and Constantinople, till it was finally exchanged for the title of Patriarch. A superior over several monasteries was also called in ancient times an exarch. The same title is also borne, in the modern Greek Church, by the person who visits' officially, as a sort of legate of the patriarch, the clergy and churches in a province. EXCA'MBION, in Scotland, is the legal name for an exchange of lands. Heirs possessing under deeds of entail are empowered by the so-called Montgomery Act (10 Geo. III. c. 51) to exchange or excamb certain portions of the entailed lands. The portions exchanged must not include the EXCHANGE, a term applied to buildings or places of resort for merchants. The name Bourse (Purse) is applied in France and Belgium to a resort of this kind; and in Hamburg, and some other German cities, there is the equivalent word Börse. Exchanges have usually comprehended an open quadrangle, surrounded by an arcade, free to all persons; but in some cases large reading-rooms now constitute resorts of this kind, and these are open only to a body of subscribers, and visitors whom they introduce. Of this description are the Exchanges of Manchester and Glasgow. Exchanges originated in the commercial cities of last-named country they were copied by England. Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands, from which The merit of introducing them is due to Sir Thomas Gresham, who, having resided as British agent at Antwerp in 1550, chose the Bourse of that city as a model for the Royal Exchange of London. Their institution in England is therefore coincident with the rise of commercial prosperity at the middle of the 16th century. The first stone of Gresham's Burse, for so it was originally called, was laid June 6, 1566, a site being found for it by removing eighty houses in Cornhill, and it was finished in November 1567. It consisted of a quadrangle with an arcade ; above was a corridor with stalls, for the sale of wares. This corridor was called the pawn-believed to be a corruption of bahn-Ger. for path or walk. Outside were shops. On January 23, 1570—1571, the Burse was ceremoniously opened by Queen Elizabeth immediately after dining at the house of Sir Thomas Gresham in Bishopsgate Street. Having viewed the whole Burse, the queen, by herald and trumpet, caused it to be proclaimed The Royal Exchange.' This first Exchange of London was almost entirely destroyed by the great fire of 1666. A new Exchange was forthwith erected on the spot, and opened September 28, 1669. This second Royal Exchange had the same fate; it was destroyed by fire, January 10, 1838. The foundation-stone of the third Exchange was laid by Prince Albert, January 17, 1842. Completed in three years, at a cost of £150,000, from the designs of W. Tite, it who declared it to be her royal will and pleasure was opened January 1, 1845, by Queen Victoria, that this building be hereafter called The Royal Exchange.' adopted from the circumstance that buying and The term Exchange seems to have been naturally exchanging of merchandise, and also exchanging and paying away of money, formed the chief object of concourse. In the present day, early intelligence in matters affecting commerce and public finance forms a principal attraction of this kind of resort. Although open daily, there are usually certain days and hours of meeting when the throng is considerable. The meeting is familiarly called 'Change;' as, for example, 'Change commences at 1 o'clock, EXCHANGE. and it is worth while seeing the crowd that comes thronging at that hour.-Murray's Handbook, articleHamburg.' The two great days of meeting at the Royal Exchange, London, are Tuesdays and Fridays, and the busiest time is from 3 to 4 o'clock. At this time are seen the greatest people on Change; some of whom, such as the Rothschilds, occupy a well-known spot. In London, there are several other Exchanges, but for special purposes; among these are the Corn Exchange in Mark Lane, and the Coal Exchange in Lower Thames Street. Exeter Change, which was a sort of bazaar, with a menagerie of wild beasts, stood in the Strand, upon or near the site of the house of the Earl of Exeter; the building, as an interruption to the thoroughfare, was removed in 1829. The Bourse at Paris and at Marseille, also the Merchants' Exchange in Wall Street, New York, may be mentioned as buildings of great extent and elegance. Lately, some handsome and commodious Corn Exchanges, as resorts for grain-dealers, have been erected in various towns in Great Britain. EXCHANGE, in Political Economy, is sometimes applied to the conversion of the money of one country into its equivalent in the money of another -as by stating the relation which French napoleons and francs bear to British pounds. The technical meaning of the word has now, however, come to be the difference between the actual value of money, taken by the standard of bullion, in any two places with relation to each other. If, in London, it costs more than £100 to pay £100 in St Petersburg, the rate of exchange is against the former town, and in favour of the latter; an inhabitant of which will be able to pay a debt of £100 in London with less than £100 worth of bullion in St Petersburg. The process will be best explained by analysing it through means of simple examples. If Thomson & Co. of London buy £100 worth of wine from De la Rue of Paris, and De la Rue, on the other hand, buy £100 worth of cotton goods from Thomson & Co. of London, the two debts, were there no others between the merchants of the same towns, would extinguish each other, and there would be no necessity either for transmitting money or drawing bills of exchange. Suppose, however, that it is not De la Rue, but his neighbour Bonchamp who has bought the £100 worth of cotton goods from Thomson & Co., then the debts of all will be settled by Bonchamp paying £100 to De la Rue on Thomson & Co.'s account. Suppose, next, the case of De la Rue being due nothing to Thomson & Co., and Bonchamp being due them only £50, a like sum has to be otherwise found. Van Pradt of Amsterdam is due precisely this sum to Thomson & Co., while either De la Rue or Bonchamp is due the same amount to Van Pradt for a purchase of Gouda cheeses; then it is clear that the several debts can be adjusted among them without the transmission of bullion. It will cost some trouble to adjust the payments, however, and this trouble will have to be paid for. As in paying Thomson & Co. their debt of £100, De la Rue will have to pay for this trouble, the rate of exchange will be against him. If the debt, or any part of it, cannot be met by such an adjustment out of cross debts and credits, it will be necessary for the debtor to send bullion to his creditor; and this being an expensive process, it throws the rate of exchange against the debtor who so pays. For instance, if the sum due by the Frenchmen to Van Pradt was only £25 instead of £50, then De la Rue would have had to be at the expense of sending £25 to London in bullion. No such actual transactions take place in the existing mercantile world, because the accounts in debtor and creditor connected with the three towns above referred to are to be counted in thousands, and ramify into other towns; but the above examples may be held to represent the groups of debtors and creditors, as algebraic signs represent quantities. The individual merchants in one trading town have no idea how the surplus of debit or credit may lie between them, far less can they tell how it may be adjusted by debits and credits in other towns; but through the agency of bankers, bill-discounters, and other persons who deal in money, the relations of all trading-places towards each other are in a constant state of shifting and adjustment; and any one who has to pay a debt in any trading-place can find out how much he has to give to get that debt paid, and can pay it accordingly. When, through the operation of these complicated transactions, you require to give more than £100 in London to get that amount paid in Paris, then the rate of exchange is against London, and is in favour of Paris, where less than £100 in cash will pay a debt of £100 in London. The difference will generally depend on the difficulty of adjusting questions of debt and credit throughout the field of European commerce, in such a manner as to get the debt paid. If it cannot be paid by adjustment, then bullion must be sent; and thus it is generally said, that the rate of exchange against any place is limited by the charge of transmitting bullion to it. The rate of exchange is liable to be brought to a level also by commercial exportation and importation, since, whenever it is expensive to get money sent to a country, there is a temptation to send goods to that country, to compensate the debt. In the general circle of transactions of this kind, the state or town which has the largest amount of transactions will have the largest number of debtors and of creditors, and will thus afford the chief facility for each compensating the other. It is thus that London is the centre of the money-market, where all the debts and credits in the world may be said to meet and extinguish each other. While the old notions about the Balance of Trade (q. v.) existed, it was supposed that the nation which the exchange was against was going to ruin; while that which it was in favour of was prospering through the other's loss. At present, it is inconvenient and expensive to a country to have the exchange against it. adverse exchange generally indicates a sort of break in the circle of trade, which it would be advantageous to fill up, and may be caused by the commerce of a country decreasing; on the other hand, however, the imports for which a country pays in cash or in expensive bills, may be the same as a highly advantageous traffic. Gold-producing countries find bullion their most advantageous export, and the same is the case with countries into which gold has flowed in excess. An EXCHANGE, DEED OF, in English law, a common law assurance, whereby persons severally seised of lands, mutually grant them in exchange, each his own land for that of the other. In order to a valid exchange, five things are necessary: 1. The two subjects must be of the same nature, as lands for lands, chattels for chattels, but not real for personal estate. 2. The parties must take an equal estate; thus, an estate in fee cannot be exchanged for an estate tail. 3. The word 'exchange' must be used. 4. There must be entry, and if either party die before entry, his heir may avoid the exchange. 5. Since the statute of Frauds (29 Car. II. c. 3), if the interest be larger than a term for three years, the exchange must be in writing. A mutual warranty and right of entry was formerly implied in an exchange. This effect of the deed has been taken away by 8 and 9 Vict. c. 106, s. 4. By the 8 and 9 Vict. c. 118, EXCHANGES-EXCHEQUER. s. 92, called the Common Enclosure Act, the commissioners are empowered to make exchanges for the better carrying out of the purposes of the act. A deed of exchange closely resembles in its particulars an Excambion (q. v.) in Scotland. EXCHANGES, MILITARY, are certain arrangements made between officers of the English army. An officer may exchange, or change places, in the Guards, or Line, with another of equal rank in any regiment of the above corps, by mutual consent, and on payment of such a sum as shall represent the difference of value between the commission vacated and that assumed. As each of the exchanging officers enters his new corps at the bottom of his rank, exchange benefits officers, especially those unable to purchase promotion, who remain in their original regiment, by advancing them towards the top of the list, and therefore nearer to promotion on a non-purchase vacancy occurring. An officer on full-pay may exchange with another on half-pay, provided a younger life be not thereby added to the half-pay list, and subject always to the consent of the Secretary for War. If the rank be one of those which are purchasable (see COMMISSIONS, ARMY), a payment of money from one officer to another is necessary to complete an exchange between full-pay and half-pay; the amount having relation legally to the regulated, actually to the market value of each kind of commission, as noticed in the article just cited. Exchanges are ordinarily arranged by the army agents. the statute 33 Henry VIII. c. 39. This equitable EXCHEQUER, CHANCELLOR OF THE. The office of Chancellor of the Exchequer, in modern times, will be accurately described when we say that he is the first finance minister of the Crown. Strictly speaking, he is the under-treasurer, the office of Lord High Treasurer being now vested in the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury. When the Prime Minister is a member of the House of Commons, he sometimes holds the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer. The judicial functions of the Chancellor of the Exchequer may now be considered matter of history. See EXCHEQUER, COURT OF. When the chief baron and the barons are equally divided in opinion, he may be required to rehear the cause with the barons, and to give his opinion. But the last instance in which this was done was in 1735; and though the decision which Sir Robert Walpole gave is said to have given great satisfac-lished by 31 Edw. I. c. 12, for the purpose of tion, the custom is not likely to be reverted to. The Court of Exchequer Chamber was originally a court of all the judges in England assembled for decision of matters of law (Coke, Inst. iv. 110, 119). Lord Campbell states, that the lord chancellor was in the habit of adjourning cases of extraordinary importance into the Exchequer, that he might have the opinion of the twelve judges (Lives of the Chancellors, i. 10). But the ordinary jurisdiction of the Court of Exchequer Chamber is as a court of error, in which capacity it reviews the judgments of the three courts of common law. This court was estab reviewing the decisions of the common law side of The EXCHEQUER, COURT OF, one of the supreme courts of common law in England. The Court of Exchequer was originally the court wherein all matters relating to the royal revenues were adjudicated upon. It is said (Madox, Hist. of Ex. i. 177) that as early as the reign of William the Conqueror a Court of Exchequer was in existence. This was probably nothing more than a branch of the Aula Regia, or great council of the nation; but on the subdivision of that court in the reign of Edward I., the Court of Exchequer acquired a separate and independent position. The special duty then assigned to the court was to order the revenues of the crown, and to recover the king's debts and duties. The court was then denominated the Scaccarium, a word derived, it is said, from In Scotland, before the Union, the Exchequer was scaccus or scaccum, a chess-board; and it was so called the king's revenue court. It consisted of the treabecause a checkered cloth was anciently wont to be surer, the treasurer-depute, and as many of the lords laid upon the table of the court (Madox, Hist. of of Exchequer as the king was pleased to appoint Ex.), a practice which, until the late act, prevailed (Ersk. i. 3, 30). The Scottish Court of Exchequer in the Court of Exchequer in Scotland. The court was continued by the 19th article of the treaty of formerly consisted of two divisions, an equity, and Union, until a new court should be established, a common law or plea side. Lord Coke (Inst. iv. which was effected by 6 Anne, c. 26. A privative 118) appears to doubt whether the equitable juris-jurisdiction was conferred on the court as to quesdiction of the court can be traced back further than tions relating to revenues and customs of excise, and EXCHEQUER BILLS-EXCISE. as to all honours and estates real and personal, and forfeitures and penalties arising to the crown within Scotland. But questions of title to lands, honours, &c., were reserved to the Court of Session. The judges of the court were, the high treasurer of Great Britain, the chief baron, and four other barons, and English barristers as well as Scotch advocates were allowed to practise in the court. In cases of difficulty, and where there was a collision of jurisdictions, it was formerly not unusual to hold conferences with the barons; and the form of desiring the conference was to send the lord advocate, and, in his absence, the solicitor-general, to request a meeting, though it has been doubted whether they were bound to carry the message (Shand's Practice, 27). By 2 Will. IV. c. 54, it was provided that successors should not be appointed to such of the barons as should retire or die, and that the duties of the court should be discharged by a judge of the Court of Session. And now, by 19 and 20 Vict. c. 56, the Court of Exchequer is abolished, and the jurisdiction transferred entirely to the Court of Session. The Court of Exchequer Chamber in Ireland was established by 40 Geo. III. c. 39. It consists of the chief justices, chief baron, and the rest of the justices and barons, or any nine of them. turer who looks to a profit on his outlay does not give part of the value to the revenue; he merely counts the tax as part of his expenditure, which he intends to get back with a profit, so that it constitutes an addition to the ultimate price which the purchaser or consumer has to pay. A tax on commodities sold and bought is a very obvious one, adopted in almost every country where taxes have been raised otherwise than on the land or by the head; but it has generally appeared in the simple shape of a toll on goods brought to market, and the complicated arrangements for officially watching the process of a manufacture through all its stages, for the purpose of seeing that none of the dues of the revenue are evaded, is of comparatively modern origin. It had been for some time successfully practised in Holland, when the Long Parliament, who were looking about for a fruitful source of revenue, observing how productive it had been there, established an excise on liquors in England in 1643. It was continued at the Restoration by the same statute which abolished aids, escuages, and the other feudal exactions, along with the Court of Wards established for enforcing them, and the royal prerogatives of purveyance and preemption. The excise may thus be considered the EXCHEQUER BILLS, bills issued at the price paid for the abolition of the burdens of the Exchequer under the authority of acts of parlia- feudal system. Though always unpopular, the ment, as security for money advanced to the excise in some form or other has ever since congovernment. They contain an engagement on the tinued to be a material element in the taxation In the earlier part of part of the government for the payment of the and revenue of Britain. principal sums advanced with interest. These bills last century, Sir Robert Walpole entertained the form the chief part of the unfunded debt of the notion of enlarging its productiveness while miticountry. They were first issued in the reign of gating its proportional pressure, by the bonding William III., in the year 1696, and were drawn system, which suspends the exaction of the duty for various amounts from £100 to £5. At that until the goods are sold, and thus leaves the manutime they bore interest at the rate of threepence facturer all his capital to be devoted to producper day on a hundred pounds (Macaulay, History of tion. See WAREHOUSING SYSTEM. But the rumour England, iv. 700). The interest was reduced to 2d. of an enlargement of the unpopular excise duty during the reign of Anne. During the war 1793-created 1814, the rate of interest was usually 3d. At present, it is generally from 1d. to 24d. per £100 per diem. Holders of these bills are exempt from all risk, except that arising from the amount of premium or discount they may have given for them. The bills pass from hand to hand as money, and are payable at the Treasury at par. They may also be paid to government in discharge for taxes. When it is intended to pay off outstanding Exchequer bills, public notice is given by advertisement. The advances of money to the government by the Bank of England are made on Exchequer bills. These bills are a convenient means whereby the government can meet a sudden demand for unusual expenditure. Thus (as will be seen below) during the pressure of the Indian mutiny (1856– 1858), the amount due on Exchequer bills greatly exceeded that of the years which immediately preceded and followed. Amount of Exchequer bills unprovided for 1855 to 1860: 1855, £17,151,400; 1856, £21,182,700; 1857, £20,989,000; 1858, £20,911,500; 1859, £13,277,400; 1860, £13,228,300. EXCIPIENT (Lat. excipio, I receive), an inert or slightly active substance, introduced into a medical prescription as a vehicle, or medium of administration for the strictly medicinal ingredients. Thus, conserve of red roses, or bread-crumb, is used to make up pills; sulphate of potass, or white sugar, in medicinal powders; water, mucilage, white of egg, and many other substances in fluid mixtures. EXCI'SE, the name of a tax on commodities, from the Latin excisus, cut off, as being a portion of the value of the commodity cut off and set apart for the revenue before the commodity is sold. This is not its actual nature, however, for the manufac a general excitement, and the memorable cry of Liberty, Property, and no Excise' compelled Walpole to abandon his project. An excise, when compared with other taxes, has its good and its bad features: it is a method of extracting money for national purposes from personal expenditure on luxuries, and is especially serviceable when fed from those luxuries the use of which in excess becomes a vice. On the other hand, it renders necessary a system of inquisitorial inspection not only very offensive to all free people, but very open to abuse and fraud; while at the same time excessively high duties, and duties on commodities strictly of domestic manufacture, lead to smuggling and all its demoralising consequences. The evils of an excise were formerly aggravated by the practice of farming the duties that is, by letting them to the highest bidder, whose interest it became, like any other contractor, to make the greatest possible profit by his speculation, and consequently to exact the duties in the most rigorous manner. In every well-regulated revenue system, it is of course only fair to all parties that the duty as the law lays it on should be fully exacted; but in the age of farming, the arrangements were all slovenly, and there was much latitude of power in the hands of the farmers. The farming system became very oppressive in France, especially in the gabelle or excise on that necessary of life, salt. It is a curious fact, however, that when the farming of the excise was abolished in Scotland by the Union, the people grumbled, saying they were easier under the farmers, their own neighbours, who acted on the principle of 'live and let live,' than under the officers sent down from England, who rigidly collected the impost. An excise works most easily when it is laid on |