The Rugby gazette and east Tennessee news. (Rugby, Morgan Co., Tenn.) 1884-188?, 1885-10-10
TAXING BACHELORS.

Some Cogent Reasons why Anti-Bene-
diets Should Pay Contributions to the
Public Treasury.
There is proposition on foot in sew
eral of the Eastern States to have laws
passed taxing bachelors certain sum
each year. The object is two-fold, to
raise money from non-producing class
of citizens, and to place bachelors I'M
der ban, and show them that their
manner of living with no object in view
is not believed to be of value to COM
munity There are two sides to all
questions, and the Sun does not know
which side to take, consequently it will
as usual, straddle the fence Bachelors,
who are such by choice, will fight it out
on that line and claim that they had
rather pay reasonable tax or even an
exorbitant tax, than to marry. They
will illustrate their position by pointing
to thousands of married men who would
be willing to pay their last dollar in
taxes, if they could be placed back in
the ranks of bachelors. The bachelors
will show that on the average they are
happier, and more free from care, and
enjoy themselves better than the aver
age married man, and on that ground
they ought to be willing to pay tax.
They will show that bachelors are,
rs rule, rotund and jolly, while
married men look as though some
thing was eating them. There may
be certain alleged beauties about the
life of bachelor while he is young and
in his prime but when he begins to get
old, and pains rack his body. sickness
confines him to his lonely bed, and he
has to be assisted by strangers and hired
help, he will realize what a fool he has
made of himself and what failure his
life has been. No wife or children to
minister to his wants, the bachelor is a
most forlorn object. 1t is then that he
begins to look careworn, cross, and as
though something was eating him, while
the married men who used to look that
way is happy and contented. 1t is bet
ter to have some cares and discomforts
as married men at the front end of
life when one can endure them and see
piece of clear sky ahead, than to have
careless picnic in early life, with
prospect of dark clouds all the time
after the Individual becomes old enough
to need kindly Offices from loving
friends, instead of hiring somebody to
be sorry for him at so much week.
The most pitiful object in life is a sick
old bachelor at boarding house, a
hotel or hospital 1t is then that he
thinks over his list of friends, male and
female, who have homes, and he would
give the world to be an inmate of one
of those homes. He thinks OF the
girls he might and ought to have
married years ago, and as hired
nurse brings him some pills to take he
thinks how much easier he could take
them from the hands of loving wife or
daughter. A bachelor with a crick in
his back thinks the hand of the hired
nurse who rubs it is a curry-comb, and
he thinks of some soft hand he has held
in his, years ago. and he would give ten
years of his life if he had given to the
owner of that soft hand the right to rub
the crick out of his back, but it is ever
lastingly too late. If he went search
ing for awife now he would have to take
eef1e who was as Old and toothigss as he
is, and her hand would be so harsh and
bony that she would produce two cricks
in the back where only one grew be-
fore. He realizes this when he losses
in pain; and the look on his face plain
ly shows remorse. Bachelor friends
may make formal calls on him when he
is sick and wish him speedy cure, but
that does not fill the bill. He dies and
the bachelor friends act as bearers to
his funeral, friends of other days ride in
the carriages as mourners, and talk
about the blank life of the deceased, but
there are no tears, unless there is sis
ter who comes from distance to at
tend the funeral and see about pro.
batting the will. The confirmed bache
lor is in hard luck, and perhaps he
ought to pay tax, or license, and weal
check on his neck, so that all may
know he is bachelor. --Pecb's Sun.