206 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



about the private affairs of any individual the chief assessors and 

 their subordinates in that city, to the number of some fifty, meet in 

 secret session in a large upper chamber set aside for the purpose, and 

 appropriately termed the " dooming chamber," when the citizen in 

 question, without being present either by counsel or in person, is 

 arbitrarily doomed to the payment of any sum which a majority of 

 those present may think proper, and from which " dooming " there 

 can be no appeal. 



The following record of the actual working of this system may 

 be thus illustrated: During the year 1889 the whole amount of tax- 

 able personal property which the assessors of Boston were able to 

 discover, exclusive of bank stock, was $39,000,000, of which amount 

 $14,570,000, or thirty-seven and a half per cent, was returned as 

 visible, and $27,650,000 as invisible. Being dissatisfied with this 

 result, which was all that Avas justified by any facts which the assess- 

 ors could state, they proceeded to multiply it four and a half times 

 by a mere guess. In their " dooming " chamber they guessed that 

 personal property, other than bank stock, ought to be valued at 

 $186,000,000; and the citizens of Boston were compelled to pay 

 taxes upon that amount. Could anything be more monstrous or 

 absurd than a system of taxation which, even when administered 

 by phenomenally honest and competent men, produces such results? 



The Use and Value of Oaths as an Adjunct of Taxation. — 

 Consideration is properly asked in this connection to the use and 

 value of oaths, an increase in the number and stringency of which 

 is often regarded as essential to effective and equal taxation. It is 

 the all but unanimous opinion of officials who of late have had ex- 

 tensive experience in the administration of both the national and 

 State revenue laws that oaths as a matter of restraint, or as a guaran- 

 tee of truth in respect to official statements, have in a great measure 

 ceased to be effectual; or, in other words, that perjury, direct or 

 constructive, has become so common as to almost cease to occasion 

 notice. In fact, there has come to be a feeling in the community 

 that an oath in respect to matters in which the Government is a party 

 is a mere matter of form, of mechanical procedure, and that its viola- 

 tion, especially with a mental reservation, and when the interest of 

 other individuals is not specifically affected, does not in itself consti- 

 tute a crime. The fact that the assessors of almost every State 

 every year make oath that they have valued all property at its 

 actual value, when they know they have not, constitutes one proof 

 of the truth of this assertion. The everyday entry of goods at the 

 customhouse at undervaluation constitutes another; the enormous 

 frauds committed in recent years under the internal revenue laws 

 of the United States, which in the case of distilled spirits en- 



