There are about eight hundred thousand
inhabitants in the place. Some twenty thousand of these owe small sums
for unpaid taxes, averaging about nine and a quarter cents to a man. To
collect these sums, an army of seventy-two thousand able-bodied men, at
salaries of one thousand dollars per annum, has been commissioned by the
PENNY BUNN Legislature.
Alas, poor city! But all has not been told. A private firm has prevailed
upon the imbecile old farmers from the western and interior counties to
give them the right to build a private freight railroad through many of
the principal streets of the Quaker City. This road will run through
several school-house yards, and the time-tables are to be so arranged
that trains shall always be due at those points at recess time. Every
fiftieth private house along the lines is to have a road-station and
freight-depot in its front-parlor, and all male residents on said routes
are to serve in turn, without pay, as brakesmen and switch-tenders. The
owners of all vehicles injured by the trains are to be heavily fined,
and the families of individuals allowing themselves to be killed are to
be mulcted in heavy damages.
Alas, poor city! But all has not yet been told. A counterfeit tax-bill
has been passed by the Legislature. All the sums handed in to the State
Treasury by the tax collectors have been found to be "bogus" money. This
action has been indorsed by the Legislature, and the action of that body
is hereafter to be of the same character as the funds paid in by its
creatures.
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