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.