Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 52.djvu/21

Rh two dollars is often imperceptible to the eye of any one but at expert. But how can an assessor have time even to open all these bales, to look at them, much less judge accurately of their value? All the assessors of New York city could not approximately value the stock of one of its great dry-goods merchants without relying upon the word of their clerks. Therefore the stock of merchants and manufacturers would be assessed upon the valuation given by themselves, as in fact it is now. Thus the assessment of 'visible and tangible property' in these important cases, is made and must be made in exactly the same manner as the assessment of bonds, notes, and other invisible property, resulting in a double or treble burden upon the simple and truthful as compared with their unscrupulous neighbors."

And, finally, as regards so much of other "personal property" as is tangible and visible, and clearly within the territorial jurisdiction of the taxing power, such as articles of personal adornment, clothing, furniture, works of art, musical instruments, books, etc., shall we assume that we have here a class of articles on which it is desirable to levy taxes? Of course, the popular answer will be in the affirmative; for are not all these objects, it may be asked, the very ones best fitted to sustain taxation? and are they not in great part luxuries rather than necessaries? But how, it may be asked, are you going to tax them? for it is reasonable to suppose that if they are to be taxed, it is to be by a system that works equitably, and not by a system which, by taxing A, and letting B, C, and D escape, brings the law into contempt; and, by making the sense of the commission of a wrong on the part of the State the excuse for the commission of another wrong on the part of the individual, gradually undermines the morality of a community that does not wish to be dishonest.

An even approximately correct valuation of the above-enumerated articles is, however, a matter of great difficulty, and none but an expert can effect it. In very many houses there are many articles, like bedding, carpets, pictures, glass, porcelain, and the like, which exhibit few outward indications of undue value, and yet whose cost was very many times greater than similar articles in ordinary use. In fact, in proportion to the wealth of the taxpayer would be the failure of the most honest assessor to estimate the true value of his property. Some years ago a State tax commission in Illinois, with a view of aiding assessors to discover and rightly assess property of the character under consideration, recommended to the State Legislature the enactment of a statute whereby every woman of "full age and sound mind," either directly or by her representative, should annually return to the assessors a statement of the value of all the jewelry, household furniture, and all other property in her possession; but these recommendations never