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Show X TT T-T X The Tithe That Binds V Coming away from a debate on taxr 1 1 couldn't help feeling that the discussion, scholarly as it had appeared ap-peared at points, and ringing with altruism at others, had offered a political potion, only slightly flavored fla-vored with any essence of economics. eco-nomics. How willing is congress to depart from the past if such a departure de-parture affects political futures? Pondering this, I came upon a dispatch In the London Daily Herald from Romney Marsh, Kent It recounted re-counted how. In the lamp-lit sitting room of a slx-century-old farm, a 72-year-old farmer, Archibald Edwin Ed-win Waddell, complained to a reporter re-porter that he was about to be thrown into bankruptcy because he refused to pay 79 pounds and 3 shillings - some $300 - in "tithes." "I shall probably die muttering," mutter-ing," Waddell aald, "against this wicked, antl-aoclal custom." cus-tom." For previous refusals to pay tithes, there had been four seizures from his farm: bullocks, sheep, pigs, farm implements, furniture, his clothing and his cart-horse. "My father," the old man concluded, con-cluded, "who farmed for 70 years In Kent, paid 1,400 pounds In tithes, and two of my brothers were forced to emigrate. I am fighting against a rope that has tightened around my neck, and around the necks of so many others who love the soil." Few people realise that tithing, tith-ing, payment of ene-trnlh of the product of the land, a custom which cornea down from feudal days when it was eollrctrd by the pariah priests, and later the Churrh of England, la so modern, mod-ern, and that Ha effect will be frit until the year 1996. Originally the tithe was paid in produce, but in 1836 it became fixed rent still paid to the church. In 1921, the law was changed to make the tithe payable Into what was called "Queen Anne's Bounty," fund used lor general church pur poses. In 1936 tithing Itself was abolished abol-ished but the law provided that over a period of 60 years a sum should be paid yearly until the amount considered con-sidered the tithe redemption fund to be the capital of the tithe on a given piece of property, had been reached. 1 That is what Farmer Waddell objects ob-jects to. But he'll pay or get out, and he will never live to see the day when he doesn't have to support the church against his will. Romania chose to change its royal purple to pure red when it bounced King Michael. But how nice, nobody can tell him he can't have "the woman I love." A dentist now reports that he has successfully transplanted wisdom teeth in cavities left by missing molars. But did he transplant the wisdom? |