production and consumption . 
45 
$4,764,416,958, all of which is expected to pay ten per cent., out 
of the people’s purse. I notice by the statistics of some sixty 
roads, before me, that the dividends have been from two to twen¬ 
ty-five per cent.—those containing the most water, securing the 
greatest dividends, generally. 
Suppose we put tlie interest at five per cent, on the whole 
amount, and then we have a sum to add to our budget of 
taxes, amounting annually to. $288,220,847 90 
Excess paid for insurance over premiums paid, say. 40,000,000 00 
Ten per cent, on $45,000,000 telegraph and express stock, in¬ 
cluding copious showers of water. 4,500,000 00 
Profits on three branches of business. $332,720,847 90 
Add total taxation, heretofore stated. 652, 528 713 00 
And we have an annual taxation of. $985,249,560 90 
The Secretary of State reports the excess of premiums over 
losses paid by insurance in Wisconsin at. $988,040 00 
Which is a tax to that amount on productive industry. 
There are 1,926 miles of railroads in this state, which at 
$40,000 per mile equals a total cost of $77,040,000, five per 
cent, on which amounts to $880,528 (two of the roads hav¬ 
ing declared dividends in 1872, amounting to $2,232,254.77, 
or near ten per cent, of the whole cost), so that without 
deducting the amount paid the state including taxes, I 
will add. 880,528 00 
Add for telegraph and express companies, say pro rata. 500,000 00 
And the sum of our voluntary taxes for those purposes is .. $2, 368, 568 00 
Which, added to the sum of involuntary taxes, makes the an¬ 
nual levy on the people of Wisconsin for all the above purposes, 
$18,076,680; yet, with all this vast sum of taxes, if all the prop¬ 
erty in the state was divided by the Agrarian law of equality, it 
would show that each person in the state possessed $758, which 
is more by $622 than they severally possessed by the same sup¬ 
posed leveling process'under the census of 1850. Thus, notwith¬ 
standing a devastating war of four years duration, and subsequent 
government expenses more than five times the amount ever 
incurred before the war for a like period, we actually increased 
our wealth near sixteen-fold in twenty years, when public and pri¬ 
vate debts are deducted. 
Stupendous as have been our burdens—great as have been our 
excesses, and onerous as have been our taxes, we are, in spite of 
all these inflictions, to-day “ able and amply able ” to construct a 
dozen such improvements, without abating a jot from our round 
