TAXING SINGLE BLESSEDNESS.

Bush Advocate, Volume XIV, Issue 303, 24 March 1903, Page 2

TAXING SINGLE BLESSEDNESS.

A bill is before the Legislature of Illinois for imposing a tax on all bachelors in that State. The General Assembly of New York have gone a step further, and are considering a bill to impose a. tax on all able-bodied spinsters as well as bachelors ""who are found to be deliberately persistent in their celibacy." The measure mercifully provides, however, that "should it appear to the satisfaction of the assessors that the celibacy of the' spinster or bachelor listed for taxation is enforced and not intentional, the assessors are authorised to remit the tax." The.New York timep gleefully enlarges upon the prospect that the passage of the Bill would open; how the lobbies of the assessors would be crowded with eager objectors of both sexes; how the conscientious assessors might then and there order the timid bachelor to pop the question to any ; gentlewoman in waiting in the lobby. f If he refuses, then his " deliberate persistency "is manifest. If he accepts, and the lady declines, then the contumacy is transferred to her. Either! way swells the revenues of the foundling and orphan asylums, to which, by a cruel stroke of irony, the proceeds of the tax are to be devoted. The men are, as a rule, bashful and timid about proposing. It is thought that the I of a t*x way inspire the women * Vith the resolution to do the proposing .themselves, and base indeed U'.ould be the slave who would refuse such a ( proposition.