Morning journal and courier., 1883-03-02
COMMUNICATIONS.
A Patriotic Taxpayers PIatnt. tba Editor of tba Jorrpr.1 ANT, Co1rz1r1

Patriotic Taxpayers PIafnt.
 To the Editor of the JOURNAL AND COURIER
 The New Haven taxpayers will have paid $60O, 1000 interest on the Air Line railroad bonds when they mature in 1889. If those who voted $500, to the Air Line had laid a tax and paid the whole sum by five annual
 installments while the road was building, their tax would have been less than our present taxation, and the interest would have been saved for some better purpose. The debt is no less and the circumstances for paying the principal are far less favorable now than when the bonds were issued First, many of the largest taxpayers have died and their es- tates have been distributed. Second current expenses have greatly increased, especially the salary part. Men are paid from $5 to $15 per day for services when they could not earn for the same amount of service at pri- vate employment one-half the sum. Third, other great debts have been contracted since. The per cent sewer debt of $500, GOO, the mover of which left the treasury in such a condition that his successor in office found
 it necessary to ask for permanent loan of SI5O, GOO to start the wheels of government
 "The annex" brought debt of $16O, 900, so
 that now we are paying interest on $1, ,5OO,-
 900, and another debt is to be made with
 consent of the Legislature of $15O,0 ,000. The
 Legislature might better appoint conserva-
 tor to protect the taxpayers from extortion-
 
 $14, 900 for 8 suburban four room district school house, when good substantial,
 spectacle and convenient frame building
 could be erected for $5, 900 to last 100 years
 $50, 900 for 8 soldiers monument which
 could not be of any use to the dead soldiers
 or their bereaved families. A loaf of bread
 or worn garment would be more grateful
 to an orphan or widow than all the monu
 ments in the land. If few rich men want
 Q soldiers monument to adorn a chosen posi-
 ton, why not furnish the money and not in
 crease the burden of an overtaxed bublic2
 Is 1t wise, is it just or expedient to pile up
 great debts, heritage for posterity, to be an incubus upon industry and thrift ? If we cannot pay our own bills how can posterity pay both their own and ours with interest If it is said that we are making improvements for posterity, we reply that the more i'm provements made the greater the demand for If one mans petition is granted another man is more earnest and inn portunate to have his petition granted. Af- ter all the great improvements made there never was so great demand for expensive and extrayagant improvements as at the pres- ent time. Pay as you go, do not spend mon ey until you get it, is maxim which has the true ring. If sewers had been constructed no faster than paid for all the sewers we have could be made and paid for in @ few years with what is now paid for interest on sewer bondS-$35, ,00O per year-without 8 dollar of debt. If debts and taxes are in creased as fast the next fifteen years they | have been the last fifteen years New Haven 1 will be insoIvent and, like Jersey City and some of the southern cities, casting about | for a pretext for repudiating just debts and | defrauding honest creditors Great interest | many have found to their grief and ruin
 ~ H7 l PATRIOT