SIMPLE LIFE IN JERSEY

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXV, Issue 3262, 3 February 1931, Page 2

SIMPLE LIFE IN JERSEY

WHERE TAXES DO NOT WORRY.

RATES FOUR AND SIX A YEAR,

Under the heading of "Safe Sanctuary from Mr. Snowden," a correspondent of the Daily Express writes interestingly of the easy going and almost tax-free life in Jersey, in the Channel Islands. He says:— There are 30,000 people in St. Helier alone. Of these 29,999 keep shops and hotels. The thirty-thousandth is the income tax collector. He keeps quiet. Jolly-cheeked men in Saville Row plus-fours, who pay no income tax, tramp the fair roads of the "Lotus Isle," drinking to Jersey in excellent whisky at 4/6 a bottle. At St. Aubyns there is a whole school of exIndian Army men, grand, curry-tinted fellows, who will stand you a double tiffin as soon as look at you.

"Dammit!" one held forth at the hotel. "Confound impudence of this Snowden bird," he bellowed. " I re ceived a demand for lOd. Damme! They owe me 7/9, confound it. One of the farmers have been heavily taxed this year, too. Sixteen-an-nine they want from him. This place is going down, confound it!" "What are your yearly rates?" the visitor asked.

'fFour-and-sixpence," snorted this one-time scourge of the punkawallahs. There in their little island sanctuary, they rest safe from Snowden with no tax on their tiffin. Every second man you meet here is a limited company, and every first one his brother.

There is a brook in Jersey, and if vou live on one side vour rates are 5/6, and if on the other 2/6. Two-thirds of the islanders speak French, and it is common knowledge that sprightly French will bring one many little perquisites—whisky at 3/6 a bottle, for example.