1891.] PUBLIC DOCUMENT — No. 4. 221 



May who has been receiving about twenty-five hundred dol- 

 lars a year salary and living right up to his income, spend- 

 ing it from month to month, — I hardly see, I say, how we 

 shall collect that tax in the fall, when he has spent every 

 dollar of his income. I should be glad if the lecturer 

 would tell us how we shall collect the tax of a salaried man 

 who has already spent his income. 



Mr Gold. I plead off from going into these particulars. 

 I tried to present in my lecture some general considerations 

 that should set us thinking, and b^ which the men who are 

 familiar with legislative matters should work out a reforma- 

 tion upon some of these points. But, as for knowing how 

 to get over all these knotty questions to which Mr. Cushman 

 alludes, I confess that, while I have met them, I am very 

 much in the dark still with regard to how the thing is to be 

 accomplished. But, when we know that a work of this kind 

 is required, after it becomes apparent to the community, 

 I believe a way will be opened to us to accomplish our 

 purpose We shall not go on eternally under the present 

 system. 



Mr. Edson of Barnstable. I have been very much 

 instructed and entertained with the essay of the afternoon, 

 and, when the lecturer touched upon the question of taxation, 

 I was all ears, for it has been a hobby of mine for several 

 years. He stated that the Connecticut law had recently 

 been changed, and that the taxation upon notes and bonds 

 and that kind of property that is easily hidden from the eyes 

 of the assessors had been fixed at one per cent for five years. 

 I want to ask the gentleman from Connecticut what the law 

 was with regard to the taxation of that kind of property in 

 that State before this new law was passed. If it was not 

 taxable before, the State has done a good thing. If it was 

 taxable before, what has she done? She has compromised 

 with thieves. That is all there is to it. Where before they 

 would have got one per cent a year, they have said to those 

 people, " We know you are rascals, we cannot trust you ; 

 but, if you will be one-fifth part honest, we will let you off." 

 I do not know that the law taxed that kind of property in 

 Connecticut before. I would like to know whether that was 

 the case, or not. 



