Incorporation Fees. 
173 
that a license for excavation must be obtained before a cellar 
can be dug. A city like New York may become so overrun with 
petty peddlers that a city license regulating them is an absolute- 
necessity. Local meat-sellers become more and more of a nui¬ 
sance as population becomes dense, and concentration of the 
business in one locality becomes a necessity. Market privileges 
are then paid for by fees collected for the use of the city treas- 
ur}^. The establishment of an oil refinery may be so dangerous 
to the safety of a city that its regulation by means of license 
becomes necessary. These are but a few examples of the thou¬ 
sand and one cases where public welfare requires that a city 
shall have and exercise licensing power. 
CHAPTER III. 
INCORPORATION FEES. 1 
PRELIMINARY REQUIREMENTS. 
The part of the fee-system which can be called, with most ac¬ 
curacy, a product of the last three decades, includes that class of 
charges which is directly or indirectly connected with corpora¬ 
tions of various kinds. The present is truly an age of corpora¬ 
tions. The gigantic enterprises with which we are familiar,, 
have been made possible only through the combination of capi¬ 
tal and ability which these corporations represent. It is per¬ 
haps not an exaggeration to say that four-fifths of the aggre¬ 
gate business of the nation is directly or indirectly carried on 
by means of those artificial persons. The whole framework of- 
our national existence is so closely interwoven with these insti¬ 
tutions, that it is almost impossible even to imagine American 
1 Strictly speaking, many of the corporation fees might be considered as 
a separate class of license fees; but their significance in the United States 
is so great that, aside from other important reasons, they deserve a place in 
a class by themselves. 
