3o6 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



In tlie Bureau of Internal Revenue a better system prevailed ; 

 but this department of the Treasury being always overburdened 

 with work, and its service largely rendered by assessors and col- 

 lectors who were destitute of business training, contributed but 

 little in the way of deductions from experience. It had, more- 

 over, at one time as its head an official who subsequently in a 

 higher position refused to allow data to be collected in respect to 

 certain taxes, on the ground that the less the people knew about 

 such matters the better it was for the Treasury. 



Another great source of difficulty experienced by the Commis- 

 sion in conducting investigations with a view of arriving at any 

 correct estimates of the prospective revenue of the country was 

 the abnormal condition of every branch of trade and industry 

 after 1861, due primarily to the war disturbances, and next to the 

 frequent alterations in the rates of taxation. Every advance 

 made in tariff, or internal revenue taxes, was anticipated to 

 such an extent by importers, manufacturers, dealers, and specula- 

 tors that the Government could not fairly test the capacity of any 

 one of its great and legitimate sources of revenue. Thus, for ex- 

 ample, the almost incredible profits made by reason of anticipa- 

 tion of the large and repeated advances in the taxes on distilled 

 spirits have already been pointed out. Of cigars, in like manner, 

 it was estimated that above eighty millions had been made and 

 stored at one time in the city of New York alone, in anticipation 

 of a higher tax ; and in the case of the comparatively insignificant 

 article of matches, on which the tax was only one cent per bunch, 

 the stock accumulated in anticipation of an advance of tax was 

 so large that it was not entirely exhausted for a subsequent period 

 of three years. 



In the absence of any specific instructions, either from Con- 

 gress or the Secretary of the Treasury, it was difficult for the 

 commission to form an opinion as to the best method of entering 

 upon the comprehension and reform of a scheme of taxation which 

 embraced almost every form of tax that the ingenuity of man 

 could devise, and with an incidence on almost every form of prop- 

 erty, business, profession, or occupation that was capable of yield- 

 ing to the state a revenue. The conclusion arrived at, after no 

 little consideration, involved a complete abandonment of any idea 

 of endeavoring to enter upon and comprehend the whole field of 

 inquiry at the outset ; and in its place, and in accordance with 

 the maxim attributed to Emerson, that the eye sees only what it 

 brings to itself to see, it was determined to take up and study spe- 

 cifically the sources of public revenue in the order of their impor- 

 tance ; and give no attention to any other subject, or attempt to 

 theorize, until everything that domestic experience or the expe- 

 rience of other countries could teach concerning them had been 



