STRANGE TAXES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 2 May 1939, Page 6

STRANGE TAXES

PRACTICES IN THE PAST. Bearded Russians under Peter the Great wore metal receipts on their beards to signify that they had paid the beard tax. Beards lacking receipts were forcibly shaved'off' by the Tsar’s barbers. Peter, also taxed matrimony because “marriage is a bit of luxury.” Mussolini’s Italy taxes single men to compel. them to marry. France levied the “gabelle”—a tax compelling every man, woman, and child to buy seven pounds of salt annually. Two hundred thousand went to gaol each year for failure to comply. Before the French revolution, aristocrats levied a "corvee royale” a tax compelling peasants to work so many days a year without pay to keep up the roads for the nobility. The revolution ended that.

But Germany, under Hitler, conscripts the labour it needs for Hitler's programme. A Persian shah with ambitions'to be an author levied a tax in 1873 compelling every political district to buy annually a copy of his diary of a journey to Europe. The tax is still collected.

Back in King Arthur's day, Lord Ryalas, a brave and gallant knight, slew a man-eating boar in the town of Chetwode. England. As a perpetual reward, to this day, his heirs collect a tax on all cattle passing through the town from October 30 to November 7. Ohio levies a tax of 25 dollars for playing croquet on Memorial Day. In 1691, England levied a heavy tax on all houses having six windows or more. Even to this day, old houses in London have bricked-up windowplaces as a result, though the tax has been repealed. English peasants shivered under Charles II because he placed an overburdening tax on hearthstones and stoves.

Ancient Rome placed a tax on dying and withheld the privilege of burial pending payment of the levy. Cromwell taxed the English Puritans one meal a week to finance the Commonwealth. —"World Digest."