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WHO PAYS YOUR TAXES?

largely to the present welfare and future prosperity ofthe city.

“ The law providing for the assessment of personalproperty is a tub which has lost its bottom. Theremnants of it are held together by the cohesion ofhabit, custom, or usage. It will not stand a jar—not eventhe jar you, gentlemen, are giving it to-day. It cannotendure scrutiny; investigation is fatal to it. An omnibushorse in this city was lately doing his regular work inharness, but when taken out had to be supported bythree men in order to reach his stable. You, to-day,have taken a sorry steed out of his harness to look athis points, and there are not men enough in the State toget that steed into the harness again to do the workhe did before. Every debate, every report, every news-paper article enlightens the public as to its rights, andimpairs the vital force of a law already almost defunct.It is fairly on its way toward the morgue, where nofriends will ever claim its remains.

“ This law for taxing personal property has beenillustrated by the figure of an almost toothless old cur.This cur barks and scares, has an evil odor, and here andthere a fang, which rends unmercifully when it doespenetrate. What shall we do with him ? Send him to adentist for other and sharper fangs, or provide him witha short rope and heavy stone?”

Letter IX. of this series relates, among other things,that —■