when not hunting, will suffice: Lackeys at "eight THALERS
monthly," which is six shillings a week. Three active Pages,
sometimes two, instead of perhaps three dozen idle that there used
to be. In King Friedrich's time, there were wont to be a thousand
saddle-horses at corn and hay: but how many of them were in actual
use? Very many of them were mere imaginary quadrupeds; their price
and keep pocketed by some knavish STALLMEISTER, Equerry or
Head-groom. Friedrich Wilhelm keeps only thirty Horses; but these
are very actual, not imaginary at all; their corn not running into
any knave's pocket; but lying actually in the mangers here;
getting ground for you into actual four-footed speed, when, on
turf or highway, you require such a thing. About, thirty for the
saddle,--with a few carriage-teams, are what Friedrich Wilhelm
can employ in any reasonable measure: and more he will not have
about him.

In the like ruthless humor he goes over his Pension-list;
strikes three fourths of that away, reduces the remaining fourth
to the very bone. In like humor, he goes over every department of
his Administrative, Household and other Expenses: shears
everything down, here by the hundred thalers, there by the ten,
willing even to save HALF A THALER. He goes over all this three
several times;--his Papers, the three successive Lists he used on
that occasion, have been printed. [Rodenbeck, Beitrage
zur Bereicherung der Lebembeschreibungen Friedrich Wilhelms I. und
Friedrichs des Grossen (Berlin, 1836), pp. 99-127.]
He has satisfied himself, in about two months, what, the effective
minimum is; and leaves it so. Reduced to below the fifth of what
it was; 55,000 THALERS, instead of 276,000. [Stenzel, iii. 237.]