Historic leaves, volume 5, April, 1906 - January, 1907

[42] expenditures of the city, the bother, more frugal in their habits, disclaims all such rivalship; the one has sources of expenditure peculiar to itself, the other participates only in a few of their mutual wants; perhaps it would not be an exaggeration to say that one-fourth of our annual expenditures are devoted to objects in which we have no particular interest. Some items of these expenditures which occur yearly are night watch, lighting lamps, repair of pumps land fire engines, and those which occasionally occur, the purchase of such articles and a variety of expences to improve and orniment the peninsula. But this is not all. Apparent as it must be to every mind, from the causes just mentioned, that we are disadvantageously situated in reference to the peninsula, another view of the subject will show that on another point we are suffering by this connection. We of the westerly section do not pretend to compete with the eastern in point of wealth, yet even on this subject what says the tax book? We pay one-sixth part of the burthens and yet contain not one-eighth part of the population. How can this be, if the easterly section is the most wealthy, without impeaching the integrity of the assessors? It is simply this, our property is seen land tangible, theirs unseen and therefore difficult to be traced. We are taxed not only for what we own, but what we have in possession; they from the nature of their property frequently are not taxed to the extent of their wealth. Under these circumstances, I expect the committee will be surprised, will be astonished that the inhabitants of the westerly section have hot long since appeared at the bar of the Legislature to make known their grievances and to vindicate their rights. This is to be attributed to a variety of causes, some of which are the smallness of our numbers, scattered population, local attachments and prejudices. Some of these inequalities are so palpable and apparent that they have long been felt and acknowledged by all; others are of such a nature as to require investigation, but are equally oppressive. I will now draw the attention of the committee to the particular interests which are conflicting, and leave it to the candor of all to decide whether the suffering party has not the highest claims on the Legislature, not only for support and redress, but for