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Show A HOME LESSON. When Prof. J. II. Paul, cf Salt Lake City, was in Manti last week, he made some sparkling propositions to the people peo-ple there ; propositions that they could readily understand. Among other things he said : The last congress spent over a billion dollars. Few people realize how much a billion dollars is. There is in circulation circu-lation in the United states one and a half billion dollars. The last congress spent two-thirds of all the money in the United States. All the wheat and corn raised in the United States last year was worth just a billion dollars. All the gold mined in the world for four years ; all the wages paid in the protected industries for three years ; all the wages paid operatives in cotton in twenty years, are each a billion dollars; and to obtain the amount of money squandered, every man, woman and child has been taxed. The price realized by government by this tax ! amounted last year to $230,000, but it was nothing in comparison to the amount levied by the manufacturers on the consumers of nroteetpd articles. You may ask, '-IIo'w is this tax collected col-lected ?" No collector comes annually, like the city ad county collectors and collect the taxes from us. It is done indirectly, and therefore the more dangerous dan-gerous because unnoticed. Let us see how a farmer pays his tax, and we will then be prepared to judge how it is with the rest of the people. A farmer rises from his bed in the morning and steps on a carpet, if he has one, taxed 60 per cent; sits down on a chair taxed GO percent, and pulls on a pair of socks taxed 75 per cent, jeans taxed 100 percent, rawhide boots 100 per cent, hat 55 per cent and coat 90 percent. His flannel shirt is taxed 100 per cent, the buttons 150 and the thread 74. He walks across a floor, the lumber taxed 20 per cent, to a dooi taxed 20 per cent, with locks and hinges taxed 35 and 45 per cent, and reaches the open air not yet taxed. His pitchfork with which he throws the hay to his horse is taxed 45 per cent, and he pumps water with a pump taxed 45 per cent. There are two things still untaxed by government, air and water. Retiring to the house he finds his wife cooking breakfast w itn coal taxed seventy-five cents per ton, on a stove taxed 45 per cent. The table, spoons, knives, forks, are all taxed. The glass from which lie drinks is taxed ISO per cent, the coffee pot 55, the table cloth 40. After breakfast break-fast he hitches his horse to a plow taxed 4-5 per cent, his shovel, hoe, etc., are taxed the same amount. After supper he picks up his Bible taxed only 25 per cent, (thank heaven!) and seeks consolation by the light of a lamp taxed 180 per cent, ami afterwards goes to sleep on a bedstead taxed 50 per cent, and pulls over his head a blanket taxed 00 per cent, feeling thankful that he lives iu a country that believes in protecting the workingman. Everything that he uses.from paregoric to coffee, la taxed. Is it any wonder that the farmer is no longer the robust man of former years ? Today our farmers farm-ers are bent double with toil before they have reached old age. The average aver-age duration of their life is less tian that of the mechanic. Fifty years ago novelist wrote of the farmer as strong' robust and healthy, his sons were heroes and his daughters heroines, but alas! to-day things are changed. The farmer grows old before his time and is buried in a coffin taxed SO per cent, and at last reaches the great demo cratic country where there are no favored fav-ored ones. When his family raise a tombstone over his grave, we read between be-tween the lines "marble taxed 85 per cent." Heaven may forgive him for voting for a party to tax him thus, but it is doubtful if his children ever will. |