, 1907-09-19
CORPORATIONS
STATE OF MAINE FOSTERS
GROWTH OF ODD CONCERNS.
List of Those Which Have Died Late.
iy through Failure to Pay Taxes
Shows Some Organized for
Peculiar Purposes.

Portland, Me.-Do you want a com
pany to supply the people of Mars
with steam shovels to dig their ca
nails? Do you want to form a company
to raise bananas in Alaska? Do you
desire a concern to trade in the spir-
its of the heroes of the past? Well, if
you do, come to Maine and file your
papers. You can form a corporation
with a capital limit only exceeded by
the skyline and it won't cost you
enough to set you back YER material
ly either.
For years Maine has been the Mecca
for those who wished to launch com
panies. The fees for granting a charter
are merely nominal. The taxes are
still more so, something like an annn-
al franchise tax of IS on $50, 900 capt.
t~alization. Almost no questions are
asked, and it is as easy for a company
with any object whatever, and a few
dollars to pay the necessary fees and
printing, to get a full-fedged charter
as 1t is for a man to get a drink in
the city of Bangor-and no man who
ever went to that city and wanted the
stuff that cheers but inebriates ever
vent very dry either.
All sorts of fanciful corporations are
filed in the Office of the secretary of
state in Augusta, and gaudily printed
shares of the stool are offered to the
public. You need not limit your capt
talization-to be sure. the more CAPT
tai o have the more tax o are sup
posed to pay, but after you have dis
posed o. your shares you probably
Won't rsy your tax anyway, and will
let the charter of the company expire.
The ether day a list of delinquent
corporations was published, corpora
lions whose charters were to expire
on account of unpaid taxes. 1t filled
two pages in nonpareil type. with close
spacing at that. But hundreds of 9th.
ers are lormed every month. so a few
more or less aren't missed very much.
All kinds OF companies are being
floated all the time.
Companies to dig tunnels in regions
where travel is absolutely nil; COM
panies to raise mussels and put them
on the market: companies dealing in
oil; companies dealing in assurance
(about all OF them have plenty of this
for their stool in trade, although 1t is
more commonly known as galD com
panies dealing in patent medicines of
all kinds; in synthetic coal" If any
one knows what that is; in amuse-
ments and women's wear; in rubber,
concrete, paving stones. engines, foods
and land are only too m
The most interesting ones are the
freak mes. They abound, from the
propagation of cats to the saving of
souls. Among a few in the advertised
list which haven't paid their taxes are
the Baldwin Airship company, the Ar
tistic Display company, the Blue
Blazes Heater company, the College
of ~PhysiOgnomy and Sublime Wisdom
of Life. the Boston Exploration com
pany. the Beacon Ethical union, the
Conscience Law corporation tone cor
poratiOn evidently has n conscience)
a concern organized up in Kittery, for
the purpose of dealing in bananas. a
company known simply as the Super.
lative company, which didn't appear to
have any business at all; Il company
for the development of two republics.
according to it's title. and so on adj in.
tinitum ct ad nauseam.