In the investigations made in 1871, by a commission created by the Legislature of the State of New York to revise its laws relative to the assessment and collection of taxes, it was found that in the city of New York, out of a population of over one million in the above year, only 8,920 names, or less than one per cent of this great multitude of people, had "any household furniture, money, goods, chattels, debts due from solvent debtors, whether on account of contract, note, bond, or mortgage, or any public stocks, or stocks in moneyed corporations, or in general any personal property of which the assessors could take cognizance for taxation"; and further, that not over _four_ per cent, or, say, forty thousand persons out of the million, were subject to any primary tax in respect to the ownership of any property whatever, real or personal; while only a few years subsequent, or in 1875, the regular tax commissioners of New York estimated that of the property defined and described by the laws of the State as personal property, an amount approximating two thousand million dollars in value was held in New York city alone. Later investigations show that this state of things has continued. Thus, in 1895, out of a population of about two million, it was estimated that only seventy-nine thousand, or not over four per cent of the inhabitants of the city, were subject to primary taxation, and that one half the whole amount collected in that year was paid by less than a thousand persons. In the city of Boston, where the tax laws are executed in the most arbitrary manner, the ratio of population directly assessed is somewhat greater, but aside from the poll tax, which is a per capita and not a property tax, only 7.27 per cent of residents paid a property tax in 1895 out of a population of 494,205. In one of the smaller cities of Massachusetts, where persons and property are capable of more thorough supervision than larger numbers and areas--namely, the city of Springfield, with a population of about fifty thousand--the report of its tax officials shows that for the year 1894-'95 the number of persons and corporations assessed on property (mainly real estate) was 7,745, or one for every 6.4 of its citizens, while 10,560 other citizens were assessed for a poll tax of two dollars only. Of the total amount of taxes assessed--namely, $735,948--the above number, 10,560, paid only $21,120; and this is the experience generally throughout the United States, as it will be in every country under a free popular government, where arbitrary inquisitions and arrests of persons and seizures of property are not allowed, and where a soldier does not practically stand behind every tax assessor and collector.