THE AVERAGE BRITON

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXVI, Issue 3400, 30 July 1932, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE AVERAGE BRITON

A TAXED ANIMAL. | A correspondent sends us the following quotation from one of Sydney Smith's adresses, which should be read with interest: “ John Bull often grumbles surlily about the , number and the weight of the taxes that are levied upon him, and yet, perhaps, he is< hardly aware of the number or the weight of the taxes of which he complains. Consider. There are taxes upon every article which enters into the mouth, or covers the back, or is placed under the foot; taxes upon everything which is pleasant to hear, see, feel, smell, and taste; taxes upon warmth, light, and locomotion; taxes on everything on earth or the waters under the earth,, on everything that comes from abroad or is grown at home; taxes on the raw material; taxes on every fresh value that is added to it by the industry of man; takes on the sauce that pampers the rich man’s appetite, and the drug that restores him to health; on the ermine that decorates the judge and the rope that hangs the criminal; on the poor man’s salt, the rich man’s spice; on the brass nails of the coffin and the ribbons of the bride; at bed or board, couehant or levant, we must pay. The schoolboys whips his taxed top, the beardless youth manages, his taxed horse with a taxed bridle'on a taxed road; the dying Englishman, pouring his medicine which has paid 7' per cent into a spoon which has paid 15 per cent, flings himself back on his chintz chair which has paid 22 per cent, makes his will on an eightpound stamp, and expires in the arms of an apothecary who has paid a license of £IOO for the privilege of putting him to death. His whole property is then taxed immediately, from 2 to 10 per cent. Besides the probate of his will, large fees are demanded for burying him in the chancel; his virtues are handed down to posterity on taxed marble, and he is gathered to his fathers—to be taxed no more.”