TAX ON DUELS.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXIX, Issue 12283, 9 July 1914, Page 7

TAX ON DUELS.

■V newly elected member of the Chamber of Deputies intends (says the Paris correspondent of the Daily lele.ira'ph) to propose the imposition of a ta<c on duels. His argument is that duels are a form of advertisement, and as such are as liable to taxation as posters and prospectuses. He suggests, that duels, like railway trains, funerals, and Cesarean Gaul, shall bo divided into three classes—third,' second and first in ascending order of taxable magnitude. For a third-class duel, witTi tlie ordinary four seconds a couple of general practitioners, and a scratch in the forearm, the tax will be 50 francs. The proces-verbaux, or official accounts of the duel, must be written on paper stamped with a bn stamp. For a second-class duel, giving . a right to decorated seconds—that is. seconds with orders in their buttonholes—hospital doctors, and descriptive reporters, the tax will be 100 francs. There will be an additional charge of 20 francs per camera and 60 francs per cinematograph apparatus. Those who desire a first-class duel must be prepared to pay 2000 francs—£Bo. But for that they are entitled to have umpires, a jury of honor, a famous swordsman as director of combat and a reconciliation on the field of honor to the accompaniment of a brass band or stringed orchestra. The sanguine deputv estimates that such a tax, lovalfv imposed and exacted, will bring over "£1,000,000 a year to the Exche- ( rjuer. __________ I