Women -- Suffrage -- History; Women -- Suffrage -- United States -- History; Women's rights -- History; Women's rights -- United States -- History
We have taxes upon everything which enters into the mouth,
or covers the back, or is placed under the feet; taxes upon
everything which it is pleasant to see, hear, feel, smell,
or taste; taxes upon warmth, light, and locomotion; taxes on
everything on earth, and in the waters under the earth;
taxes on everything that comes from abroad, or is grown at
home; taxes on the raw material, taxes on every fresh value
added to it by the industry of man; taxes on the sauces
which pamper man's appetite, and the drugs that restore him
to health; taxes on the ermine which decorates the judge,
and on the rope which hangs the criminal; on the poor man's
salt and the rich man's spice; on the ribbons of the bride,
on the shroud of the corpse, and the brass nails of the
coffin. The school-boy whips his taxed top; the beardless
youth rides his taxed horse, with a taxed saddle and bridle,
on a taxed road; and the dying Englishman, pouring his
medicine, which has paid seven per cent., into a spoon that
has paid fifteen per cent., flings himself back upon his
chintz-bed, which has paid twenty-two per cent., and expires
in the arms of an apothecary who has paid a license of a
hundred pounds for the privilege of putting him to death.
His whole property is then taxed from two to ten per cent.
Besides the probate, large fees are demanded for burying him
in the chancel. His virtues are then handed down to
posterity on taxed marble, and he is gathered to his
fathers, to be taxed no more!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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