TAXATION.

Waikato Times, Volume XIV, Issue 1224, 4 May 1880, Page 3

TAXATION.

It is not generally known, we believe, and perhaps the knowledge when gained will not be overacceptable, that both the Land Tax and the Property Tax will have to be paid for the current quarter. The former is collected for the financial year under the old system, ending on the 30th June, while the latter is levied for the new financial year, which begins on the Ist April. It follows, consequently, that the two periods overlap, and that persons who have paid their Land Tax up to the 30th June next are not thereby exempted from having to pay Property Tax on the same landed property for the whole of the current financial year, including the quarter which commenced on the Ist instant. This will not be very pleasing news to those fortunate persons whose large possessions cause them to contribute rather heavily towards the public burdens ; but it is undoubtedly the law, and will be carried out unless Parliament should interfere to prevent it, and in the present state of the colonial finances it is possible that so acceptable a " haul " will not be relinquished. It is calculated that the extra sum yielded by the simultaneous collection of both taxes, notwithstanding that the one was supposed to repeal the other, will be some £20,000 or £30,000. The country will gain and the landowners and property men have only to " pay and look pleasant." Doubtless they will be compelled to do the former, but we fear that all compulsion will prove vain to produce an agreeable expression of countenance under the extra wrench. — Evening Post.

The question of baby's name is as important now as ever it was. One -would think nothing was easier than naming* the baby, for the world has been full of names for the last six thousand years, yet it is a subject that elicits the gravest discussion in the family, and reaches out to the " advisory board" of the neighbourhood, and often ends in open dissatisfaction, or a compromise by which the poor child goes through life carrying 1 a prenomen crushing enough to break the constitution and make the life of the bearer miserable. A long name is always a disadvantage. For a boy who enters the marts of trade a double name is often a safeguard, and especially so when the middle letter is one seldom used in proper names. If the leading name is not short and quickly spoken, a nickname is inevitable. The case of the gill is entirely different. No girl should be burdened with a double name, no matter how many aunts and grandmothers aio to be honoured by so doing. A girl should have a single name, and that snould be pronounceable and musical. Mehitable and Jerusha, and like names, may be good and substantial enough, but a young lady, sooner or later, revolts. Every young lady, as a matter of course, expects to marry, and should not lose her family name by so doing, but simply add that of her husband. She could get her double name by this important act of her life, and not before. There is something in a nnne after all. A"HappyFamily." — The other evening, at 9 o'clock, a policeman found a family of five persons and two old trunks under a shed near the foot of Second-street, waiting to go up the river on a woodbarge, which wouldn't leave until the next forenoon The man had both hands pressed to his face, the woman was wiping her eyes on a handkerchief, and all the children were equalling. " What seems to be the matter ?'' inquired the officer, as he halted among them. " Oh, nothing much," answered the man. " I've got the ju'mpin' toothache, but it allus slacks up on me about midnight." "What ails your wife?" "Oh, she's kinder tired out and nervous, but as soon as she gets a good rest for her back agin the wood-pile she'll go to sleep and forget all about it. She's all right— she is." ''Buttbe children are crying," continued the officer. "Yaas, kinder crying,' " replied the man, " but thats nothing. That boy, Augustas Caesar, wants a stick of gum, but he' ll soon chaw himself to sleep on a sliver. The next one, Charles Henry, he's howlin' 'cause I won' buy him arockin-horße, but soon's I get time to spank him he'll curl down and go a dreamin' of angeL*. That gal, Minerva, has got her mouth made up for fried cakes and milk, but I'll give her a bite o' pork and bread from the trunk and she'll never know the difference. We are kinder sprawled out here, and we seem to be kinder afflicted, but we ate a reg'lar happy family." — Detroit Free Press.

" Sound" Sense. — *' When is a man a coward?" asked a teacher. "When he runs away from a cow," answered the pupil.