It was stated not long ago, in Our Curiosity Shop, that the postal expenses in the Southern States have long exceeded the postal revenue from the same States, while in the Northern States the opposite is true. I challenge you to show that this was the case before the late civil war.
A Confederate.
Answer.—That is not at all hard to show. It has been the case pretty much ever since the government was formed. In the Northern States the postal revenue has almost always been in excess of the expenditures, while the reverse has been true in the South. In 1846-7 the transportation of the mails throughout New England cost $256,464, while the postal revenue collected in those States amounted to $443,648. The expense of mail transportation in New York and Pennsylvania was only $384,719, while the postal revenue collected amounted to nearly double that amount, say $746,933. In Virginia, Maryland, the Carolinas, and Georgia, during the same time, the expenditures aggregated $770,044, while the amount received for postage was but $311,569, or less than half as much. At the same time Alabama paid in less than $50,000, while the expenditures were over $136,000; and Texas returned but $3,246 for an expenditure of $24,102; though Wisconsin, in which the expenditure reached but $15,043, returned to the general postoffice $56,703, and Iowa, then in its infancy, came within less than $500 of meeting all the cost of her postal service. This is a fair sample of how it was before the war.
WEALTHIEST STATES.
Chicago, Ill.
Will you kindly state in Our Curiosity Shop which State in the Union is considered to be the richest? Say if Pennsylvania does not rank the highest in the aggregate of products. If not, what State does? and what is Pennsylvania’s rank?
Enquirer.
Answer.—According to the census of 1880 the four States showing the highest assessed valuation of real estate and personal property are: New York, $2,651,940,006; Pennsylvania, $1,683,459,016; Massachusetts, $1,584,756,802; Ohio, $1,534,360,508. Assessed valuations are so far from being the true values of property, and there is such divergency in the practice of the various States—some assessing at nearly the true value, others at scarcely 25 per cent of it, and most of them at rates ranging between 40 per cent and 50 per cent of it—that there is no great amount of satisfaction in a comparison based on these valuations. For example, the total assessed valuation of personal property for the State of New York is $322,657,647, when it is generally believed that four men, Mr. Vanderbilt, Jay Gould, Russel Sage, and Augustus Belmont, together, own very nearly this amount in bonds, mortgages, and other personal property.
As to the value of their chief products, the States holding the highest rank are as follows: