The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1866-05-08
A Well-Taxets Country.

country England) at the time he
wrote. Here is the picture:
''Taxes were piled on taxes until
they reached every article which en-
ters into the mouth, or covers the
back, or is placed under the foot;
taxes upon everything which it is
pleasant to see, hear, feel, smell or
taste; taxes upon warmth, light and
locomotion; taxes on everything on
earth and in the water under the
earth; on everything that comes from
abroad, or is grown ut home; taxes
on the raw material; taxes ON fresh
value that is added to it by the indus
try of man; taxes on the source which
pampers mans appetite, and the drug
which restores him to health; on the
ermine which decorates the Judge,
and the rope which hangs the crimi-
nal; on the poor mans salt and the
rich mans spice; on the brass nails
of the coffin, and the ribbons of the
bride. At bed or board, couchant or
levant, we must pay.
s"The school-boy whips his taxed
top; the beardless youth manages his
taxed horse with a taxed bride on q
taxed road: and the dying English
man, pouring his medicine which has
paid seven per cent, into o spoon
which has paid fifteen per cent,
t1ings himself back upon the chintz
bed which has paid twenty-five per
cent, makes his will on an eight
pound stamp, and expires in the
arms of an apothecary, who has paid
license of hundred pounds for the
privilege of putting him to death.
His whole property is then imme-
diately taxed from two to ten per
cent. Besides the probate, large
fees are demanded for burying him
in the chancel; his virtues are handed
down to posterity on taxed marble;
and he is then gathered to his fathers
to be taxed no more"
Our own country has been brought
to nearly the same condition by Sec
tional legislation, and by the immense
expenditures of the late war. Every
thing almost is taxed-from q box of
lucifer matches to box of tobacco,
from bed mattress to bale of cot
ton, from a shingling nail to bar of
iron, from the killing of diminutive
roasting pig to the slaughtering of
mammoth OK. If poor devil of an
office-holder gets over $500, he must
pay five per cent. of it. If a man
makes written contract, no matter
how insignificant, he has to pay five
cents for the privilege of doing so;
simple receipt for money must bear
the inevitable stamp, or it is worth
less; every box or vial of medicine
has to pay a tax; a common photo
graph likeness is taxed; q deed or
conveyance of property cannot be le-
gally recorded unless stamped and so
with every other written instrument.
And thus it is, from the commonest
necessaries of life to its most extrava-
CANT luxuries; every article is taxed.
If the radicals shall have their way
spending their time and the peoples
money, in months of fdiabolical legisla-
tlon-in appropriating millions for
the so-called Freedman's Bureau, in
granting uncalled for subsidies to
parties for the accomplishment Of
their destructive schemes, in support
ing standing army, which is I'M
called for among a free people, and in
thousand other ways squandering and
tiinging away the millions extracted
from the hard-earned pittance of the
poor, as we'll rs the Golfers of the
rich-then will Sydney Smiths re-
marks apply to us, and the United
States will have the honor to be the
best taxed country in the world.
JEFFERSON DAVIS. clip from
the Fayetteville Ne.cs the following
letter from ex-Prcsident Davis, in
response to one from the ladies of
Fayetteville enclosing check for
Mrs. Davis. He appreciates the SYM
pathy which his countrywomen feel
for his family:
FORTRESS MONROE, VA,
April %, 1866.
Ms. j. X. Kyle, FayetteriAe, N. c.
MY DEAR MADAM: I have the honor