Summary. 57 



were to be exempted from a]] assessment for the same length of 

 time.i 



11. Abatement and Collection of Taxes. 

 The state treasurer, in accordance with a law passed by the assembly 

 in May, 1785,^ which continued in force throughout this entire 

 period, allowed the towns an abatement of one-eighth of the amount 

 of the state tax imposed upon them, provided the selectmen of the 

 towns certified that this allowance was applied in the remitting of 

 taxes to their own poor. In October of the same year the fees of 

 the collectors of the state tax were set at two cents and a half for 

 every dollar that they collected. Traveling expenses were also 

 allowed.^ The legislature in May, 1806, raised the fees to three 

 cents and a half for every dollar.* From May 1, 1797, until April 9, 

 1818, the total abatements on the state taxes allowed by the treas- 

 urer were one hundred sixty-seven thousand one hundred forty 

 dollars and the total allowed to the collectors for fees and travel 

 was forty-three thousand eight hundred sixty-five dollars. 



F. Summary. 



The state started with a debt of over two million dollars, but on 

 April 10, 1818, its debt was nominal and the state had a permanent fund 

 of about four hundred thousand dollars. This change had been wrought 

 chiefly through the assumption of the greater part of the state debt 

 by the federal government and by the payment to the state of the 

 balance due from the United States. The state had also amassed 

 a permanent school fund of about one million seven hundred thou- 

 sand dollars which came from the sale of its western lands. At the 

 close of this period, the annual yield of this fund was about fifty 

 thousand dollars, and together with the principal was increasing. In 

 the order of importance, the three other principal sources of revenue 

 were the state tax on the towns, the income from the permanent 

 fund and the revenue from duties on writs and from licenses for the 

 retailing of spirits. Outside of the expenses of running the govern- 

 ment — legislative, judicial and executive — the three leading objects 

 of ordinary expense, in the order of importance, were the support 

 of schools, the care of paupers and the state prison. (This leaves 



1 Public Statute Laws, May 1817, chap. 9. 



- Conn. Laws, May 1785, p. 324. 



3 Conn. Laws, Oct. 1785, p. 333. 



* Conn. Laws, May 1806, p. 720. 



