“YET HE IS STILL ALIVE!”

Franklin Times, Volume 9, Issue 673, 7 October 1921, Page 7

“YET HE IS STILL ALIVE !”

PSTSFUL WASL OF A PLUfIfSSTEAD TRADER. WHY HE IS STILL CLINGING TO LIFE. The Rev. W. E. Lee, of Plumstead Central Hall, has received the following letter from a Plumstead super-tax payer. It was sent in response to a request fcir £25 towards the 1920 Anniversary Offerings :—“Dear Mr Lee,—For the following reasons I am unable to send you the cheque for which you ask. I have been held up, held down, sand-bagged, walked on, sat on, flattened out, and squeezed. First by our income tax, the supertax, the excess profits tax, war loans, war bonds, war saving certificates, the automobile tax, and every society and organisation that the inventive mind c,an invent to extract what I may or may not have in my possession. Also by the Red Gross, St. Dunstan’s, the Children’s Homes, the Y.M.C.A., the Salvation Army, the Belgian Relief, the Austrian Relief, the Black Cross, the Double Cross, and every hospital in the town and country. The Government has governed my business so that I don’t know who owns it. I am inspected, suspected, examined and re-examined informed, required, and commanded, so that I don’t know who I am, where I am, or why I am here at all. All that I know is that I am supposed to be an inexhaustible supply of money, for every known need, desire or hope of the human race, and, because I will not sell all that I have and go out and beg borrow, or steal money to give away, I am cussed, discussed, boycotted, talked to, talked about, lied to, lied about, held up, hung up, robbed and damn near ruined, and the only reason why I am clinging to life now is to see what the h—— w'lll happen next:”