The Economy of Local Rates 200 
by the larger, such as the counties, and what are to 
be assumed by the largest possible area, such as 
England or the United Kingdom. I presume, for 
example, that everyone expects that the cost of reliev- 
ing vagrants will disappear from the union budgets 
in consequence of new arrangements by which the 
State will take over the work of preventing mendicant 
and larcenous vagrancy, and that the counties will 
take over the whole charge of lunacy instead of, as at 
present, only a small fixed charge per lunatic main- 
tained in the county asylums—one of the maddest 
arrangements ever made by people who professed to 
be sane, as it makes the county, which manages, bear 
a fixed charge, while the unions which do not manage, 
pay the varyi:~ charges resulting from difference of 
managemeni. __t:rations of this kind will of course 
reduce Lie . 1. ' money necessary for equalising 
purpoe~