[Chinese tax.] The head-tax of the Sangleys has usually been attended with so many difficulties in its collection, owing to the facilities with which they absent or secrete themselves, and the many stratagems this cunning and artful race employ to elude the vigilance of the commissioners, that the government has at length found itself compelled to let out this branch, as was done in 1809, when it was disposed of in the name of one of them for the moderate sum of $30,000; notwithstanding it is a generally received opinion, that the number of this description of Chinese, constantly residing in the Islands, is above 7,000, which, at the rate of $6 per head, would raise this proportion of the tax as high as $42,000.

[Community funds.] The Community funds belonging to each town, have, in conformity to the regulations under which they are administered, a special, or I might say, local application; but collected together into one stock, as is now the case, and directly administered by the government, they produce a more general utility.  The head town of the province A, for example, requires to rebuild the public prison or town-hall, and its own private funds are not sufficient to defray the expenses of the work in question.  In this case, therefore, the government gives orders for the other dependent towns to make up the deficiency by taking their proportions from their respective coffers, as all have an equal interest in the proposed object being carried into effect.  The king’s officers, in consequence thereof, draw the corresponding sums from these funds, the whole of which is under their immediate superintendence.  And in order that the surplus of this stock may not stand still, but obtain every possible increase in a country where the premium for money is excessive, when let out at a maritime risk, it is ordered that some part shall be appropriated in this way, and on the same terms as those observed by the administrators of the charity funds belonging to the Misericordia (Charity) establishment, and the third order of St. Francis, which is another of the great advantages of assembling this class of property.

In consequence of this judicious regulation, and the success with which this measure has hitherto been attended, the Community fund has gone on increasing in such a way that, notwithstanding the sums drawn from it for the purpose of constructing causeways, bridges, and other municipal objects, at the commencement of 1810, the stock in hand amounted to no less than $200,000; and it is natural to suppose when the outstanding premiums due shall have been paid in, a considerable augmentation will take place.  This branch, although not exactly comprehended in those which constitute the revenue of the government, has so obvious an analogy with that of tributes, that I have not deemed it any essential deviation from the order and method I have hitherto observed in this work, to introduce it in this place, as in itself it did not deserve to be classed under a distinct head.