St. Landry democrat., 1882-01-07

their own creditors, as Burnside was.
The State commissioner of agriculture
may estimate the products OF the State
to be So, 0OO,O 900 a year; but when the
cost of the production is deducted there
is generally a mere living left, and
often not that. Suppose an acre OF land
yields two hogsheads of sugar, and a
gross revenue OF SlGO per acre; would
YOU assess this land at $3.50 per acre,
for the purposes of taxation? Yet
the complaint from the city Is, that
it is not assessed still higher. There
may be some who know how to run
city newspaper, but if they were to
attempt to run sugar plantation, they
would get swamped" the first year.
We have very few sugar Plantations
in this parish, and their owners cannot
boast of large net revenues; but II, as
an experiment, an equalizing assessment
board is established for them, we Will
not object. Most of them are situated
in the extreme southern part OF the
State, near New Orleans, and to start
only with them would be an advantage
for the equalizers. But the small farm
ers, who have no corn for this year,
and whose crop last year was not suf1l-
cient to enable them to buy it, can dis
pense with the luxury Of an equalizing
assessment board for the present.
When the St. Landry Democrat asked
The Item to say wherein the rural con-
stituents are interested in our military
displays, it forgot for a moment, no
doubt, the two or three occasions when
Governor Wilt was called upon to
send military assistance to some OF the
parishes to quell labor troubles. The
country member, or man who can feel
no pride in we'll drilled. soldlerly
looking regiment of militia is alto
gether OF too stolid and inelastlc dis
position to appreciate anything more
country produce.-[City Item.
That's our style exactly. We are not
aesthetic, and don't want to be il we
have to be taxed for it. Wen take
the pigs, cabbages and general coun-
try produce" every time, and our esthe-
tic city contemporary may have the mill
tary. If every parish had regiment or
so Of aesthetic troops, supported by State
appropriations, we are of the opinion
that city taxpayers would become non
aesthetic. They now esteem country
man according to the amount Of "pigs,
cabbages and general country produce "
he sends to the crescent city; but if he
were to quit raising such and turn his
attention to military aesthetics at the
States expense, they would consider
him an expensive nuisance and all
utterly utter fool. Let the parish that
wants or needs the mility pay for the
same, say we.
The right OF the Legislature to appro-
pirate the revenues OF 1882 in payment
of their services rendered i'll 1881 will
be tested in the courts.
If the State of Louisiana is so i'm
poverished that she cannot pay her
Just, honorable and acknowledged debts,
is it not little inconsistent to squander
hundreds of thousands of dollars upon
new State House,
oldest and soundest journals in the
State, in its issue of this morning, fully
indorses the position of The Item with
regard to the States treatment of it's
creditors: "That State, playing
shuttlecoc1 with its obligations, and
whose representatives speculate in it's
securities, brushes under foot all honor,
truth and faith, and renders its sover-
eighty an object of ridicule for the
world at large."-[N. 0. City Item.
Therefore, as such poor use is made
of the revenues, the country parishes
do not want taxes increased by GEN.
trail equalizing assessment board.