PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. . 167 



sand dollars. It was noted that their continuance had the unde- 

 sirable effect of increasing the number of marriages by irrespon- 

 sible persons, and in a manner devoid of all solemnity. The rates 

 imposed in England as late as 1706 on bachelors and widowers 

 contracting marriage varied according to the class in life to 

 which they belonged ; from thirty pounds to twenty-five pounds 

 on the elder sons of the higher orders of nobility to twelve shil- 

 lings on persons possessed of an income of fifty pounds per annum. 



Within a very recent period a petition, numerously signed, has 

 been presented to the French Chamber of Deputies asking that a 

 special tax on bachelors be established in France, and recalls the 

 fact that the French revolutionary Convention of 1789, and some 

 of the old republics, established such a tax. The petition further 

 stated that the number of bachelors in Paris is nearly half a 

 million, while the number of married men is not more than 379,- 

 000 ; and " that such a tax ought to be doubly welcome in France : 

 first, because it will increase the declining population of the state 

 by inducing bachelors to marry ; and, secondly, because it will 

 help to make up a growing deficiency in the national budget," 

 In Switzerland, in the assessment of an income tax and taxes on 

 dwelling houses, certain deductions allowed to married persons 

 with families, are not allowed to bachelors or childless married 

 people. 



Legislation looking to the taxation of bachelors has also been 

 seriously proposed of late in several of the States of the Federal 

 Union. In Illinois, for example, a bill has been introduced in its 

 Legislature imposing a uniform tax on all single men, sound in 

 mind and body, above thirty-two years, who are not able to show 

 that they have proposed marriage three times and been rejected. 

 The proceeds of the tax are to go toward establishing a home for 

 worthy and indigent single women above the age of thirty-eight. 



A Missouri bill makes the tax progressive, increasing by suc- 

 cessive increments as the bachelor persists in his state of single 

 blessedness. 



In modern times (1848) an English Governor of Ceylon Lord 

 Torrington undertook to repeat the experience of his country- 

 men of near five centuries before, by imposing a poll tax of three 

 shillings per annum, or one week's labor, valued at three shil- 

 lings, from every man, rich or poor, in the colony. This exaction, 

 in point of inequality, was worse than the poll tax of Wat Ty- 

 ler's time, inasmuch as it made the average income of the poorest 

 laborer the standard according to which the rate of taxation was 

 to be established for all. There was also another curious feature 

 connected with this experience. The Cingalese priesthood were 

 held liable to pay this tax, either in money or a week's work, 

 when their religion required that they must neither perform 



