THE POOR BACHELOR.

Evening Post, Volume LXIV, Issue 119, 15 November 1902, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE POOR BACHELOR.

One of the most novel and determined efforts to drive the bachelor to matrimony or suicide is the law which hasbeen promulgated in one of the States forming the Argentine Federation (points out, the itfew York Times). ' A man is marriageable' in Argentine wnen ha has completed his twentieth year. If, from tint date, and till he passes his thirtieth birthday, he wishes to remain single, be must pay £1 a month to the State. For Ihe nc-st five years, the tax incruises a hundred per cent. Between .thirty -five ond fifty the bachelor is supposed to have crystallized into a confirmed state, and a strong financial jolt is considered necessary to awake him from his lethargy, lie •is, 'therefore, mulcted to the tune of £1 a month. From his fiftieth year lo five beyond the Scriptural three-score and ten, Hie; bachelor ik mulcted £6, but having rdiichcd the seventy-fifth year, relief finally comes, and the tax becomes nominal, being reduced, to £1 15s per annum. Af\kV eighty, a, man can remain single without paying anything. There is a paragraph relating' to widowers, who are given thric years in which to mourn and pick a successor. 71 a man is- unable lo pay his taxes he is put in prison, unlesshe can show a just causa, such as lack of employment or sickness. A man who can prove that he has received three declinations in one year is also considered to have earned immunity from taxa-, lion. It is said that the law works like r. charm. Since the day when it went into operation the alcaldes of the villages and towns ' have donu a rushing business, and the treasury ia as empty as before, which seems lo indicate' that between the two evils of marrying or parting with the hard-earned coin, the bachelors of Argentine prefer, the former.