Taxes on Horses, 1 dollar each.
Taxes on Dogs, half a dollar each.
Poll Tax, from a quarter dollar to 4 dollars each person.
It is singular that such a tax as the poll tax, that which created the insurrection of Wat Tyler in England, should have forced its way into a democracy. In the collection of their taxes, they are quite as summary as they are in England. This is the notice:
“You are hereby informed, that your property is included in a list of delinquents now preparing, and will be advertised and sold for the assessments due thereon. (This being the last call.)
“Your immediate attention will save the costs of advertising, sale, etcetera.
”— Collector.
“Collector’s Office, Number 1, State of —.”
It is a strange fact, and one which must have attracted the reader’s notice, that there should be a poor’s rate in America, where there is work for every body; and still stranger that there should be one in the city of Philadelphia, in which, perhaps, there are more beneficent and charitable institutions than in any city in the world of the same population: notwithstanding this there are many mendicants in the street. All this arises from the advantage taken of an unwise philanthropy in the first place, many people preferring to live upon alms in preference to labour; and next from the state of destitution to which many of the emigrants are reduced after their arrival, and before they can obtain employment. Indeed, not only Philadelphia, but Baltimore and New York, are equally charged for the support of these people—the two first by legal enactment, the latter by voluntary subscription. And it is much to the credit of the inhabitants of all these cities that the charge is paid cheerfully, and that an appeal is never made in vain.
But let the Americans beware: the poor rate at present is trifling—40 cents in the 100 dollars, or about 1.75 pence in the pound; but they must recollect, that they were not more in England about half a century back, and see to what they have risen now! It is the principle which is bad. There are now in Philadelphia more than 1,500 paupers, who live entirely upon the public, but who, if relief had not been continued to them, would, in all probability, by this time, have found their way to where their labour is required. The Philadelphians are proverbially generous and charitable; but they should remember that in thus yielding to the dictates of their hearts, they are sowing the seeds of what will prove a bitter curse to their posterity. See note 2.
Note 1. “On the whole, I cannot help considering it a mistake to suppose that slavery has been abolished in the Northern States of the Union. It is true, indeed, that in these States the power of compulsory labour no longer exists; and that one human being within their limits can no longer claim property in the thews and sinews of another. But is this all that is implied in the boon of freedom? if the word mean anything, it must mean the enjoyment of equal rights, and the unfettered exercise in each individual of such powers and faculties as God has given. In this true meaning of the word, it may be safely asserted that this poor degraded class are still slaves—they are subject to the most grinding and humiliating of all slaveries, that of universal and unconquerable prejudice. The whip, indeed, has been removed from the back of the negro; but the chains are still upon his limbs, and he bears the brand of degradation on his forehead. What is it but the mere abuse of language to call him free, who is tyrannically deprived of all the motives to exertion which animate other men? The law, in truth, has left him in that most pitiable of all conditions—a masterless slave.”—Hamilton’s Men and Manners in America.