The Cotton States in the Spring and Summer of 1875 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1876 Excerpt: ...to some member's farm or plantation; the creation of new counties; and acts incorpo-/% rating a multitude of petty villages, some having less than three hundred inhabitants, afflicting their inhabitants with a city government, mayor, and administrators, authorizing these officers to lay taxes " not to exceed the parish tax;" and providing fees and salaries for the needless officers. Nor was even this the worst. I know some such little towns which have never, since their incorporation, been ruled by the officers they chose: on some pretext the elected men are rejected, and the governor then fills the vacancies thus created. So severe has been the pressure of taxar tion, and so greatly has business been prostrated in the State by the long-continued misrule, that, according to an official report, in three years, 1871-73, 47,491 tax seizures were made in the city of New Orleans by the sheriff; I have seen parish newspapers three of whose sides were filled with advertise-V ments of tax sales--this not in parishes which prudently refused to pay taxes, as a few remote ones have done; and I have before me a statement, certified by the recorder, showing that from the 10th of November, 1871, to the 18th of November, 1873, 821 tracts of land and plantations in the parish of St. Martin were actually sold by the tax-collector for State and parish taxes. Yet, in spite of their exorbitant commissions, the official report of the State auditor for 1874 contains a list of defaulting tax-collectors containing twenty names, who are reported to be in default to the amount of $200,000. Nor can it be said that the valuations are low, for in New Orleans the assessors receive by law five per cent. for their work, and the assessment is made annually. In the parishes, the t...