STRANGE IMPOSTS

Greymouth Evening Star, 15 May 1939, Page 4

STRANGE IMPOSTS

LUXURY TAX ON MARRIAGE. Bearded Russians under Peter the Great wore metal receipts on their beards signifying that they had paid the beard tax. Beards lacking receipts were forcibly shaved off by the Tsar’s barbers. Peter also taxed matrimony because “marriage is a bit of luxury." Mussolini’s Italy taxes single men to compel them to marry. France levied the “gabelle"—-a tax compelling every man, women, and child to buy seven pounds of salt annually. Two hundred thousand went to gaol each year for failure to comply. Before the French revolution, aristocrats levied a ‘‘corvee royalo” a tax compelling peasants to work so many days a year w’ithout pay to keep up roads for the nobility. The revolution! ended that. i But Germany, under Hitler, con-! scripts the labour it needs for Hitler's programme. A Persian shah with ambitions to bcj an author levied a tax in 1873 compel-1 ling every political district to buy an-j nually a copy of his diary of a jour-] ney to Europe. The tax is still collected.

Baek in King Arthur’s day. Lord Ryalas, a. brave and gallant kni-’-ht. slew a man-eating boar in the town of Chetwode, England. As a perpetual reward, to this day, his heirs collect a tax. on all cattle passing through the town from October 30 to November 7. Ohio levies a tax of 25 dollars for playing croquet on Memorial Day. In 1691, England levied a heavy tax on all houses having six windows or more. Even to this day .old houses in London have bricked-up window]:'aet.s as a result, though the tax has been repealed.

English peasants shivered under

Charles H. because lie placed an overburdening tax on hearthstones and stoves.

Ancieut Rome placed a tax on dying and withheld the privileges of burial pending payment of the levy. Cromwell taxed the English Puritans one meal a week to finance the Commonwealth.