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WHO PAYS YOUR TAXES?

anything that he may sell, whether it is lodging or boardor merchandise.” (Editorial, May 19, 1891.)

This is too self-evident to need discussion. This taxis specially adapted to municipal wants, as the assessablevalue of real estate increases in direct proportion tomunicipal expenditures.

The practical difficulties in the way of its adoption arenot serious. It is not difficult to show the farmer thatthe accompanying exemption of personal property wouldgreatly lighten his burdens, because he knows that agri-cultural land is worth little in itself and derives itsvalue mainly from the stock, crops, machines, and cap-ital employed upon it. These are things the assess-ment of which the farmer can evade less easily than thetrader.

This tax must be on the real estate regardless ofwhether it is paid for or not. Were the propositionswhich commend themselves to many of our rural legis-lators carried out—namely, to tax the mortgage too, orto tax the land and allow the amount of any mortgagesto be deducted from the assessed valuation—in the onecase the amount of the tax on the mortgage would becharged over to the borrower, and in the other the cityspeculator would pay simply no real estate tax whatever,because he would cover up his land to its full value withmortgages held by his sister in Jersey City , his lawyer inGreat Britain, or by some one else who was so removedfrom the jurisdiction that, in accordance with the de-