Smyrna times., 1878-08-07

40 SOOl dS A6 was gone, L opened MS
advertisement. / studied it attentively for
four minutes. l then called up the cook
and said
Hold me while faint Let Maria turn
the battercakes."
By and by, when | came to, sent down
to the rum-mill on the corner and hired |
an artist by the week to sit up nights and |
curse that stranger, and give me lift oc-
casionally in the daytime when l came to |
hard place.
All, what a miscreant he was. His sad |
vertisement" was nothing in the world but |
wicked tax return-a string of imperti- |
nent questions about my private affairs,
occupying the best part of four foolscap |
pages of fine print-questions, l may re- |
mark, gotten up with such marvellous in. |
genuity that the oldest man in the world
couldn't understand what the most of
them were driving at-questions, too, that
were calculated to make a man report
| about four times his actual income to keep
from swearing to lie. l looked for loop.
hole, but there did not appear to be any
Inquiry No. l covered my case, as gener-
| ously and ample as an umbrella could an
ant hill:
"What were your profits in 1869 from
any trade, business or vocation, wherever
carried on?''
And that inquiry was backed up by
thirteen others of an equally searching
nature, the most modest of which required
information as to whether had committed
any burglary, highway robbery, or by any
arson or other source Of emolument, had
acquired property which was not enumera,
ted in my statement of income as set op-
posite to inquiry No. |.
1t was plain that that stranger had en-.
| oh Il 70, { Il
very, very plain, and | went out and hired
another artist. BY working on my vanity.
the stranger had seduced me into deolar-
ing an income of $2l4,000 BY law, 81 900
of this was exempt from income tax-the
only relief | could see, and it was only a
drop in the ocean. At the legal five per
cent, | must pay over to the government
the appalling sum of ten thousand six
hundred and fifty dollars, income tax.
may remark, in this place, that | did
not do it,
| am acquainted with a very opulent
man, whose house is palace, whose table
is regal, whose Outlays are enormous, yet a
man who has no income, as | have often
noticed by the revenue returns; and to
him went for advice in my distress. He
took my dreadful exhibition of receipts. he
put on his his glasses, he took his pen, and
presto! was pauper! 1t was the neatest
thing that ever was. He did it simply by
deftly manipulating the "dcduction." He
set down my State, national and muni.
cipal taxes" at SO much; my "losses on
r sales of real estate''--on 'live stock sold''
!, ON payments for rent of homestead =
"repairs, improvements, interest" on "pre-
viously taxed salary as an officer of the
, United States army, navy, revenue service,
2 and other things. He got astonishing "de
ductions" out of each and every one oil
, these matters-each and every one oil
S them. And when he was done he handed
me the paper, and / saw at glance that
during the year 1869 my income, in the
] way of profits, had been one thousand hcc
l hundred and .ffty dollars.
:. "Now," said he, "the thousand dollars
, are exempt by law. What you want to dc
e is to go and swear this document in, anG
3 pay tax on the two hundred and fifty dol
e lars"
while he was making this speech hi
!, little boy Willie lifted two dollar green
K back from his pocket and vanished will
it, and l bet anything that if my STRANGE
| were TO call on that little boy tomorrow
:" he would make q false return of his in
e come.)
o "Do you," said l, " Do you always worl
r, up the deductions afrer this fashion il
It your case, sir"
:" "Well, l should say so. If it weren't 70
y those eleven saving clauses under the heat
is of Deductions" l should be beggare
4 every year to help this hateful and wicked
this extortionate and tyrannical govern
ment"
:; This gentleman stands away up anon
IS the very best of the solid men of Buffalo
the men of moral weight, of commerce.
~ integrity, of unimpeachable spotlessness-
lr and so l bowed to his example. l wen
ID down to the revenue office, and unde
IS, the accusing eyes of my old visitor I stoo
up and swore to lie after lie, fraud aftt
ee fraud. villainy after villainy, till my in
u mortal soul was coated inches and incht
te and inches thick with perjury, and m
us self-respect was gone forever and ever.
Ill But what of it? 1t is nothing more tina
thousands of the highest, and richest, an
ne proudest, and most respected, honored an
ny courted men in America do every yea
5O And so don't care. am not ashame
Ie. l shall simply, for the present, talk lit
ur and wear fire-proof gloves, lest fall in
re certain habits irrevocably.
ur -4.l-
70, Mr.. Samuel J. Tilden has not lived