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594 and on incomes exceeding three hundred pesos a year. This measure had soon to be abandoned however, but the levy of ten per cent on urban property, established for one year, was continued, with application to convents and communities, save charitable institutions, and the reluctant merchants had to respond with more than half the sum of a fresh half-million loan. In the following year a compulsory lottery was introduced to extort annually a million and a half from the people at large. Further, a new copper coinage was issued to replace the immense variety of copper tokens, circulated from almost every large store under the name of tlacos and pilones, and to remedy the growing scarcity of small silver money, such as half and quarter reals. At first the coin fell into discredit through the objections raised by merchants, but the issue being restricted to prudent limits and its proportion in payments being regulated a decided benefit was experienced.

Another cause for the exodus of Spaniards was the