Evening star., 1937-01-26
Washington
Wayside
Tales
Random Observations
of Interesting Events
and Things.
PUBLIC SERVANT.

N06t6 10 dt fCdoI O1ic chiPAOye
of the District tax assessors Of
fee whose letters are most
= gratefully received by Wash.
ington taxpayers. She Is Mrs. Anna
E. Thompson, chief refund clerk. Now
that YOU know her you will understand
1t is Mrs. Thompson who has the job
and the pleasure-of notifying tax
payers that for one or more Of many
possible reasons the District owes
the taxpayer money-not vice versa,
as is more to be expected.
This comes to light because Fred
Allen-the tax assessor, not the
omedian-reports that Mrs. Thomp-
son has just sent out tax refund notice
No. 10000. Since 1929, when the
District began voluntarily sending out
notices that it owed refunds to tax
payers, Mrs. Thompson has dispatched
glad tidings Of refunds amounting to
s450,000.
Why the refunds? There are many
reasons. Sometimes 1t is for over
payment Of due taxes, sometimes for
payment Of taxes on the wrong prop
erty. sometimes for duplicate pay
ments, sometimes for mistakes in
calculations, sometimes for change IN
area of a taxable property or reduc-
ton in the amount of improvements
on developed properties.
Time was when the taxpayer had
to discover such miShapS and demand
refunds, but that was changed some
eight years ago. Incidentally, Mrs
Thompson had something to do with
correction Of this system by calling
the attention Of former Tax Assessor
William p. Richards to the justice OF
the District voluntarily sending out
notices of due refunds, it Is said.
CUSTOMER
A man Nth a suitcase walked
into an Eleventh. street lunch
room the other day, took a seat
at the counter and ordered cup
of coffee. Upon arrival of the or
der the man stared at it moment.
Then. ,oithout ,oord, he got up.
took his suitcase and wdlked out.
The counter man glanced after
the customer and loosed number
OF uncomplimentary phrases. A
,raySider. ,DitneSs to the strange
proceedings, questioned the matter.
THAT man." he explained,
"comes in here every other day
and orders coffee. When I gipe it
to him, he Just looks at it and
Ddlks out. He doesn't touch it,
out he doesn't pay jor it either"
CASTANETS.
YOU'D never think of a night clut
as an institution Of learning, but
the night club editor claims he learn,
all manner of things from his job
The latest thing he learned was about
castanets and he'll probably carry his
new knowledge with him to the grave
on account of it Is such a startling
revelation.
Few people realize" this press re.
lease starts out, that pair of casta.
nets are of different tone" Probably
mighty few people even wondered
about it, but there it is. The ones or
the left hand are pitched lower than
the ones worn on the right. The story
goes on: Another interesting thing
about these instruments, If such they
may be called Gust so you call a
spade a spade, you can call castanet
anything YOU want to) is that they
must be warm to produce the proper
sound" So you learn something else;
you probably didn't even know a cas-
tanet had a proper sound. Anyhow
Spanish dancers carry their caSta-
nets In flannel bags. close to the body
to keep them at the right tempera-
ture.