The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1914-01-15
TAKES TEN MEN
 TO COLLECT POLL
 TAX IN HARTFORD
Three Collectors Do Work In Bridgeport and Take
 Tn More Money

Tn Bridgeport three men collect the
 personal tax. In Hartford 1t takes
 ten men to do the job, and the 10
 do not collect as much pTOportionate- lily as do the three in Bridgeport. Hartford tried the scheme which May
 or Wilson had proposed to have the
 tax collector collect this tax as we'll. It was a failure and Tax Solicitor
 Hart of Hartford, although given as
 sistants to do the extra clerical work, asked to be relieved of the job.
 These facts were disclosed today
 when H. ". H. Proskey, secretary to
 Mayor Louis R. Cheney of Hartford. paid a visit to the personal tax col-
 lectors of this city. MT. Proskey is
 visiting the larger cities of the state
 with a view to getting statistics re-
 garding the methods of collecting the
 tax in various cities. MT. Proskey
 spent about a half hour with the col lectors this morning.
 The collectors in Hartford have few of the difficulties which confront the
 collectors in Bridgeport as the bulk of the population in Hartford is Eng
 fish speaking. There is no large cos mopolitan population there. as in the Industrial Capital of Connecticut. In
 Hartford, the majority of residents who are Of foreign birth and who speak languages other than English, live in one section, known as The Ward Bridgeport's foreign born population is scattered all over the l city and has not confined itself to any one section.
 ! The collectors in Hartford have ht- tie difficulty in securing the names ! to make up their tax lists and much. less difficulty which the collectors in Bridgeport experience in collecting the 1 tax, or in seeing that those liable to iassessrnent pay up and that payments are credited to the proper persons \ lre.rsr 9z pointed collectors and they have eight canvassers who help make up the lists and who go about hunting up deHn- quents. Tn Bridgeport three men do all the work and yet with all the difif-
 culties they encounter they get in more money than do the ten men in
 Hartford. In fact the three collec- I tors in Bridgeport lead the state for Iproportfonate collections The work of the collectors would Il be made more easy in Bridgeport and the men liable for the tax would be certain that their payments were right fly credited, if the latter would bring Ito the personal tax collectors office, I the original bills which the collectors send out
 I Often the collectors are obliged to ask some man who does not speak lgood English to write his name. Many I times they are obliged to ask him to t5write second time and then they I find the man writes itadIfferently from the first. s9
 Men who are liable for this tax of ten move about two or three times I before they make up their minds to pay their tax. When they call at I the office to pay they invariably give ltheir present address instead of the address which was theirs when the I tax bill was made up and at which ] they, stand charged on the personal tax roIlectOrS' books. The Hartford collectors also have a istenographer while the clerical work lof the office in Bridgeport is done by I the collectors themselves. Collectors fKemp1e and Holt are at present naak ling out 27. .009 bills for those liable for the 1913 tax.
 I MT. Proskey today brought the com p1iments of Mayor Cheney to Mayor Wilson but as the latter was not in his office he did not present them. MT. lProskey will visit New Haven, Water I bury, Meriden, New London and Nor I wich on his statistics gathering trip.