222 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan. 



Mr. Gold. The law taxed it, but there was a habit of 

 evading the law. It was a habit that people got into, as the 

 old farmer said with regard to a kicking cow that he sold. 

 When the man who bought her complained of his purchase, 

 the old farmer said, "It must be a habit she has got, — a 

 habit she has got." 



Mr. Edson. Then the habit of the people of Connecticut 

 is to evade taxation. Let us look at it in our own Common- 

 wealth. All of that kind of property is taxable here. A 

 ten-thousand-dollar boncT is just as much taxable as a ten- 

 thousand-dollar farm. Is it taxed? Not at all, — not in 

 one case in fifty. The valuation of this Commonwealth is 

 about two billions. Is there a man within the sound of my 

 voice who does not know that the personal property of the 

 Commonwealth of Massachusetts is three or four times the 

 amount of the real estate? That everybody acknowledges. 

 Why, it appears that $55,000,000 worth of property that 

 had not been taxed was brought out in Connecticut, because 

 its owners got off by paying one-fifth of what they ought to 

 pay. Now, we ought to have a law in this Commonwealth 

 that shall uncover this personal property. The farmers of 

 this good old Commonwealth of Massachusetts are paying 

 the tax of the capitalists. Their tax is more than double 

 what it would be if we could get hold of the personal prop- 

 erty. It is said we cannot get hold of it. I know better. 

 I have been an assessor in the town of Barnstable for seven 

 years. The law in this Commonwealth is all right and 

 proper. What does it say ? It says that the assessors shall 

 — it does not say, " You may" or " It is best for you to do 

 S o" — but " You shall put every man under oath in regard 

 to his personal property." Do they do it? We had over 

 forty assessors before our committee on taxation last winter 

 on this very question. Not one in ten of them put people 

 under oath. It is a very delicate thing for an assessor to go 

 to one man and say, " I am going to put you under oath in 

 regard to your; personal property." " Why," says the man, 

 "do you suspect me to be a rascal?" That is the first 

 question. That law is a dead letter on our statute book. I 

 attempted, as a member of the committee on taxation, to put 

 some life into that law. I proposed to pass a law that would 



