Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 253, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 November 1917 — Foreign Municipalities And Governments Add to Revenue With Side Lines [ARTICLE]

Foreign Municipalities And Governments Add to Revenue With Side Lines

There are foreign municipalities as well as foreign governments that do not think it beneath them to add to their revenues by “a side line or two.” The city of Paris, for Instance, increases Its revenues by a few francs each year In the cultivation of a little state orchard in the Luxemburg gardens, and the same municipality also takes Its share of the receipts of the Eiffel Tower. A curious revenue accrues to the city of Palermo, which makes commercial use of Its snows from the mountains. .The Sicilian snow is brought down at night In baskets and shipped to the neighboring towns, where It Is sold for refrigerating purposes. The Greek government has a mo?t profitable side line In its monopoly In playing cards, from which It derives a handsome Income. The Russian government once undertook, to its profit, a deal In junk. It was just after the Crimean war, when for months old Iron, shot and shell were picked up around Sebastopol. A regular trade In this junk sprang up, thousands of tons being sold. Finally It struck the government that the Idea was such a good one that It would take a hand itself. It thereupon intervened between buyers and sellers, imposing a tax of ten cents per hundredweight. It was estimated that the Imperial government profited In this way to the extent of SBO,OOO.