SCIENCE. 



FRIDAY, JANUARY 15, 1886. 



COMMENT AND CRITICISM. 



Like all cities which have not seriously 

 grappled with the subject of municipal taxation, 

 Baltimore has been suffering tor years from the 

 inequality of assessment, escape of personalty 

 from taxation, the difficulty in enforcing pay- 

 ment, and the practice of many persons who do 

 business in the city, of residing part of the year 

 in the country, and thus withdrawing personal 

 property from taxation. To remedy matters, a 

 commission was appointed last summer to investi- 

 gate the question ; and during the past week a 

 report has been made, of more than local interest. 

 No opportunity was given for radical changes, as 

 the state constitution, which requires that all per- 

 sonal and real property shall be taxed on a uniform 

 basis, stands in the way. The committee favor 

 the creation of sixteen city assessors, to be ap- 

 pointed without regard to politics, and with a 

 tenure of sufficient length to secure expert service. 

 The assessors are to constantly review both real 

 and personal property, and prevent evasions. 

 Property is to be assessed up to its full value, and 

 the system of discounts for prompt payment of 

 taxes is to be abolished. On the other hand, as 

 an aid to the poorer classes, taxes may be paid 

 quarterly. Professor Ely of Johns Hopkins uni- 

 versity, who is one of the commission, adds a 

 supplemental report, looking to a change in the 

 constitution. He would abandon the attempt to 

 tax all personal property, and attempt only to 

 reach such classes of personal property as bank 

 shares, for instance, which can be assessed with- 

 out discrimination. The larger proportion of per- 

 sonal property should be taxed only by indirect 

 means. Real estate should be taxed at one uniform 

 rate ; all incomes in excess of six hundred dollars 

 per annum ; so, also, all rents of dwellings, taking 

 as a basis three times the annual rent of dwellings, 

 in lieu of miscellaneous personal taxes ; and the 

 rental value of all stores, offices, manufacturing 

 establishments, and other places of business, the 

 rent being fixed at ten per cent. He recommends 

 a special heavy taxation on retail and wholesale 

 liquor-dealers, and finally favors the plan of de- 

 No. 154. — 1886. 



riving all state taxation from corporations and 

 licenses, thus leaving real estate for local purposes. 



Typhoid-fever is a disease which has too long 

 been permitted to exist without a well-directed 

 effort to diminish its ravages. Although the 

 specific micro-organism to which it is due is not 

 so definitely ascertained as in the case of tuber- 

 culosis, still there are but few who question the 

 relation of cause and effect between some microbe 

 and the disease. It is also conceded that this germ 

 is given off in the excreta of the patient, and that 

 the spread of the disease is caused by the inhala- 

 tion of air containing the germ, or by the imbibi- 

 tion of water, milk, or other fluid which has be- 

 come contaminated with the infected dejections. 

 In rural districts, where the water is derived from 

 wells which are often but a few feet from the out- 

 house, there is no difficulty in understanding how 

 the infection might pass from the vault to the 

 well, and how those who partake of the water 

 might contract the disease. In large towns and 

 cities, however, where the water-supply is from a 

 distance, and the ground from which it is obtained 

 free from such contaminating influences, the propa- 

 gation of the disease must be accounted for in 

 some other way. Particularly is this so, when, as 

 frequently happens, the disease prevails in re- 

 stricted sections, and is absent elsewhere, while 

 the water consumed is the same for all sections. 

 Manifestly the starting-point for an investigation 

 is the infected excreta, if the accepted theory is 

 the true one. If these could be followed and their 

 route ascertained, more especially if the course 

 pursued by the infectious element could be traced, 

 the mystery would disappear, and the problem be 

 solved. 



Recent observations made in Brooklyn, a report 

 of which has appeared in the daily press, point 

 to the sewers and the drain-pipes of the houses as 

 the channels by which the disease finds its way 

 from one house to another, and clearly indicates 

 that the plan to be pursued, based on our knowl- 

 edge of the history of the disease, is to throttle it 

 at the start by thoroughly disinfecting the dis- 

 charges of typhoid-fever patients before they are 

 thrown into the drains or into the out-houses. 



