The Municipality of New Amsterdam 24-'; 



And well it may thus hope, for the whirligig ol' time has done stranger 

 things than the work of rehabilitation. But even in times that may 

 be accounted more prosperous than the present, the sense of obligation 

 to pay the taxes was somewhat dull Hence it came to pass that 

 Ordinance 1 of 1886 (New Amsterdam Tax) enacted that in case the first 

 moiety of the tax was not paid fifteen days after it became due, the whole 

 tax for the year became payable and recoverable. This seems harsh, but 

 the late Town Clerk, now in the Elysian fields, thought it was not too 

 stringent, and as Mr. Ceorge Hieken (he had been a member of the 

 Board in 1878) was known to be as kind-hearted as Goldsmith's -Man 

 in Black." it can lie taken for granted that his opinion reflected truth. 

 We have him saying that '• I have found from experience gained since 

 my assumption of office in 1888 such a law was urgently needed if the 

 wheels of the Municipal eoach were to be kept running." Some of the 

 cash book entries before this date show that some ratepayers owed for 

 Beven years. In 1886, we gather from the minutes, the President ami 

 a member of the Board were appointed a Committee to u go over the list 

 of the names of those in arrears from 1880 to 1885 and to recommend 

 for exemption such as appeared to them to be really destitute, the Secre- 

 tary furnishing a list of such names to the next meeting." The Board 

 clearly had no right to exempt any private party from the obligation to 

 pay taxes. Yet a few months before this time we read :- ■■• Letter from 

 . asking time to pay the taxes due on her property as she was 

 very poor and a widow," and the Board •• regretted that s applica- 



tion could not be entertained, as no partiality can be shown to indivi- 

 duals in the matter of the collecting of taxes." Here is another entry 

 not without interest : — " Letter from J — - — J— . proprietor of put 

 lot 41, Stanleytown. informing the Board that the Marshal had been 

 instructed to levy on and sell his property for taxes. He further stated 

 that he was 71 years old and barely able to earn his daily bread, that for 

 fifty years he paid taxes to the Board, and being now unable to continue 

 doing so, he asked the Board to buy in his property and allow him t<> 

 live in it for the balance of his life, which he felt sure, will be short." 

 The Board did not enter into a calculation as to probabilities, nor of the 

 bargain it may or may not have made, but deferred consideration. 

 Meanwhile the Town Superintendent came to the rescue by promising to 

 pay the taxes for the petitioner. Then, as now, all arrears of taxes could 

 be collected at any time, unlike the case in Georgetown where summation 

 uausi issue before the close of a year for the taxes payable thereinto be 

 collectable. 



The New Amsterdam Town Council Ordinance forbids any tnembei 

 or officer of the Council from appraising the property in the town for 

 assessment purposes, but in the days when the Board of Superintend- 

 ence was in existence, two of its members, associ ded with a master 

 carpenter, undertook the work of appraisement At times, too, certain 

 members were appointed to report on the arrears of ta^c. £aldom it 

 was — and this even to within recent years — that the aid of the marshal 

 was called in. the plea, genuine or otherwise, of poverty being too much 



