PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. 199 



ors to bribery have been altogether underestimated." Some of the 

 results have been positively ludicrous. 



" If the assessment returns are to be believed, in nine tenths of 

 California there is not a pound of butter; in four fifths of the State 

 the sheep do not produce any wool; fifty counties have quantities 

 of beehives, but only four have any honey; personal property is 

 vanishing from San Francisco; loans of money are becoming un- 

 known in the rest of the State; bonds of cities and municipalities 

 of all kinds are not held within the State to an amount equal to 

 one sixth of the county bonds outstanding alone ; and, finally, money 

 has been smitten by a pestilence, two thirds of all that there was 

 before the adoption of the Constitution having already taken to itself 

 wings, and the remainder being evidently on the way. One of the 

 great objects of the new Constitution was to tax railroad, telegraph, 

 and telephone companies to the last cent of their value. The actual 

 result has been that telegraph and telephone companies are now 

 assessed for the cost of less than their bare poles, or about sixty-five 

 dollars per mile. The railroad companies resisted taxation for one 

 or two years, at the end of which, by a singularly simultaneous im- 

 pulse of virtue, some thirty boards of supervisors directed their dis- 

 trict attorneys rigorously to prosecute the railroad companies to the 

 uttermost of the law. Thirty district attorneys forthwith hauled 

 the railroad companies before the magistrates of justice. With 

 equal promptness the thirty boards of supervisors met, and, without 

 any consultation with each other, passed resolutions directing the 

 district attorneys to compromise all suits at sixty per cent of the 

 amount claimed; and the thirty district attorneys obeyed before 

 the State officers could put in a protest." 



It was anticipated that the new order of things would increase 

 the burden of taxation on the city of San Francisco, and especially 

 on personal property and money at interest. What actually hap- 

 pened is shown by the following figures: In 1880, before the new 

 laws became operative, the city of San Francisco paid taxes on a 

 valuation of $68,586,000 of personal property not money, and on 

 $19,747,000 of money at interest or otherwise. In 1886, after the 

 law had been operative for five years, it paid on a valuation of $48,- 

 705,000 of personal property, a decline of one third, and $6,188,- 

 000 of money, a decline of two thirds. In 1894, after the law had 

 been in operation for fourteen years, it paid on a valuation of 

 $56,130,000 of personal property, a decline of $12,454,000, and 

 $7,100,000 of money at interest, a decline of $12,647,000. 



It was naturally supposed that the new Constitution would have 

 great influence in increasing the assessment of personal property in 

 the form of tangible, visible merchandise, and of bonds and credits. 



