742 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



internal revenue of the United States, whicli, in respect to facil- 

 ity, economy of administration,* and productiveness of revenues, 

 ought to have much to commend itself. A system formulated by 

 discarding, if thought expedient, all stamp taxes on drafts, checks, 

 promissory notes, receipts, releases, matches, etc., as vexatious 

 rather than valuable, and making their fixation and cancellation 

 obligatory on every deed, mortgage, or certificate of stock at the 

 time of their transfer of ownership, by sale or otherwise, at the 

 rate of fifty cents per every thousand dollars of their face value, 

 and every fractional part thereof, would be highly productive of 

 revenue and have much otherwise to recommend it. A man that 

 sells or transfers a farm or mortgage, or a certificate of stock, 

 for $10,000, would not think a stamp of five dollars very burden- 

 some. In its applicability to the purchase and sale of real estate 

 it would have the characteristics of a land tax, the incidence of 

 which, although always and necessarily equitable, proportionate, 

 and free from anything like discrimination, would be the light- 

 est on lands uncultivated or devoted to agriculture, and heaviest 

 on lands at the great centers of population and trade, for the pur- 

 chase of which its surface must be, as it were, always covered 

 with gold, f It probably would not be agreeable to speculators 

 in stocks, to the creators of fictitious " trusts," or to the directors 

 of swindling railroad, mine, and other like organizations, who, if 

 not benefited in respect of their profits, might be to some extent 

 as to their morals. Such a tax, moreover, would be as readily 

 and economically collected as that of the postage stamp, and, like 

 the latter, would have to be paid for before using. How much 

 revenue would annually accrue to the national Treasury from such 

 a system of taxation through stamps is not easy to estimate, but 

 undoubtedly it would be very considerable. In the way of infor- 

 mation helping to form an opinion on this subject the listing of 

 stocks and bonds on the New York Stock Exchange during the 

 year 1896, exclusively to replace old securities, is reported as 

 amounting to nearly $1,175,000,000. During the recent years of 

 business depression an average yearly sale of 56,000,000 shares of 

 stock in New York city is reported; but during what are re- 



* The cost to the Government in 1868 of revenue stamps for checks, drafts, receipts, 

 and other like instruments, was twelve and a half cents per thousand. The cost of col- 

 lecting the entire receipts of the internal revenue in 1894 was 2"'70 per cent. 



f " A million dollars and half a million more were recently paid for five lots on Broad- 

 way, New York, opposite Bowling Green. This was the value of the land alone, as the old 

 buildings it bore were at once to be torn down. A year or two ago the corner of Liberty 

 Street and Nassau, measuring seventy-nine feet along the one and one hundred and twelve 

 along the other, and about one hundred feet in depth, brought $1,250,000, and this, again, 

 for the sake of the land alone." Places in New York, Mrs. Van Rensselaer, Century 

 Magazine. 



