The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1904-05-22
FUNNY TAXES.

No country in the world has so many
/ the car. Russia taxes tea heavily. and
| tobacco and spirits lightly She has no
/ income tax. but takes percentage of
! the profits of industrial companies. She
taxes the passports of foreign residents.
and the st. Petersburg municipality
makes every foreigner pay nearly 81 30
a year for the privilege of using its ILL
lighted streets. paved with cobbles.
Russias local taxes are a strange mus
cum of curiosities-the county councils
levy taxes for the up-keep of theaters,
for fire insurance. for selling cheap lit
erature, and for maintaining creches for
children whose parents are at work in
the fields.
Apart from the county councils, every
village levies what taxes it likes. The
village commune, which is the unit of
Russian administration, has almost COM
plete self-government; and the peasants
have no knowledge whatever as to what
are the limitations in disposing of the
individual liberty of their fellow-men
Every part of the empire, therefore, has
its strange and characteristic taxes.
In Samara, in East Russia, the village
communal council has tax on all men
who marry before completing their term
of military training. on the ground that
the soldiers wife has generally 10 be
maintained by the villagers. In the neigh
boring government of KaZan the Mo
hammedan Tartars place a tax of half a
rouble twenty-five cents on every man
whose wife wears more than twenty
coins on her dress Tartars who ACQUIRE
wealth buy up old gold and silver coins,
and have them pierced and sewn into or
namental breastplates, which their wives
wear.
The husband of any woman who wears
more than forty coins pays a rouble and
the Russians thus possess tin, grad
uated property tax"
In parts OF Tver the peasant comnunes
tax every man shilling a year who
wears leather boots instead OF the usual
bast-shoes made out of the inner bark
Of the lime tree. In ArchangeI every
peasant who aspires 10 he ''starosta.' or
headman. must pay eight shillings on the
LIST OF January preceding the elections.
The communes OF Yarosiayi tax beds
and every man - cents year who wears
leather ancient plank 'uarva" must paw
% kopecks tabOut 81 centsl The peasant
who leaves a kharkoff village during
harvest time To work in factory must
pay one-tenth Of his wages % the com
mune. otherwise the ''rnire." or com
D1unal council. has a right 10 refuse 70
grant a passport. without which the la
borer cannot live in town. Peasants Of
southern Kharkon. who have got no
'Samovar." ortesurn. have one-hfth Of
their taxes RENTED.
II the far north unmarried girls over
eighteen are taxed = cents for the first
year. 50 cents Tor the second. and 81 cents
thenceforward II they remain unmarried
The professional ''svakhs" Or match
maker. who oranges all peasant unions.
often undertakes TO pay these ImpoSts II
the girls viii wait until she has obtained
them rich hridegrooms
\ peasant whose cabin has been burnt
down. or who has To horse, n exempted
from communal taxes nearly all over
southwest Russia Two funerals in
year constitute claim to similar exeTnp-
ticn. In Vorouezh 4 rich peasant who is
able 70 send his son to hsgh school In
the provincial capital has ID pay FIVE
roGbles. or about s2.50 year to the vii
lase treasury. In the same province. sH
cabins with more than the customary
single room and shed annex are assessed
= cents year for every extra room.