Evening Republican, Volume 23, Number 310, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 December 1920 — TURK TAXES ARE HIGH [ARTICLE]

TURK TAXES ARE HIGH

Levy $229 on Cheapest of-United States Automobiles. *— Sugar and Liquor Rates Are Away Up—School BooJ|cs Are Only Things Exempt. i New York.—Turkish tax collectors spare nothing from levies except schoolbooks, and the assessments run so high that 10 cents a' pound is exacted on all sugar, while a tax of $229 recently was demanded on an automobile that sells for $595 in the United States. These unterrifled tax collectors have hoisted the rates to such an altitude that the Near East Relief injected a protest, its headquarters here was informed In a letter from one of their workers in Samsoun, Armenia, about 300 mites from Constantinople. Liquor, blfghted by prohibition since October 1, is tqxed a certain sum per bottle, Irrespective of quality, the let-

ter said. The time limit for exporting all intoxicants from the county terminates December 1: After that the Kemal government will confiscate the balance of stocks. For thirty years special taxation has been exercised to fill a swamp that has .caused malaria to blossom and flourish constantly, bul, the writer said, “these hundreds of thousands of Turkish pounds have filled official pockets while the marsh still remains unfilled.” The Near Blast Relief has a hospital only a mile away, and has persistently requested that this “plague-spot” be removed. Dr. K. J. Marden, head of the Near Blast hospital at Marsovan, has “performed many minor operations to remove tatoo marks from Armenian girls,” continued the letter. These girls are tattooed on the hands, forehead, cheekbones, chin and on or between the breasts. Many girls are deeply ashamed of this mark of their slavehood. “Some of these girls will vanish sooner or later from the protecting home, as some have done before them, to find their way back to the Turkish or Kurdish harem which contains their child. One cannot blame them. They are mothers first and Armenians afterward. There is tragedy there, fdr the Armenian men will never understand this thing. To them the child Is a Turkish child. To the mother It is her child.”