Jasper County Democrat, Volume 1, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 September 1898 — SOME MORE FIGURES. [ARTICLE]

SOME MORE FIGURES.

Editor Democrat:

The Journal of last week gave us some figures it claims to have obtained in advance of their official publication. These figures, if correct, only prove that counties having twice, thrice and even nearly four times the taxable property of ours are likely to pay a little more tax than we do, at least sensible people would think so. The figures I give for the same counties the Journal cited last week, are official. I did not write for them fir- manufacture them. They can be found in the last report of the Auditor of State for the year 1897. If the Journal is getting any advance sheets of the State Auditor’s coming report, we I would like to see them. Now, i there is but one correct way of comparing the taxes of one county with those of another, and that is to take the amount of tax paid on the SIOO valuation. By the last report of the Auditor of State, these counties paid for county purposes on the SIOO valuation: Adams 8 .41 Henry 21 Jay 218 Lake... 26 Madison 35 Montgomery .30 Newton .... >3O Putnam 21 Randolph.... 17 Sullivan.... .34 White 28 Wells 39 Jasper 50

These are the twelve counties which the Journal claims are paying 80 per cent more tax than Jasper! Some or the counties of the state may be trying to catch up with Jasper in high taxing since the last report of the Auditor of State, and the Journal man may be on the inside, getting figures that common people are not yet permitted to see, but confining ourselves to the reports that bear the official stamp of the state we find Jasper still right -up to the front in high taxes. Journal man, you know the auditor’s report for 1897 puts Jasper right up among the highest taxed counties of Indiana. If the figures have changed so much since the 31st day of October 1897, is it because so many counties have raised their tax or is it because Jasper has so greatly reduced her’s? If you can not find answer to these questions in state reports, please write to somebody. The taxes we are npw paying, the tax rate rate levied the first Monday in September, 1897, is among the very highest in the state. We care not who makes the figures, nor where they come from; we care not what excuses are offered,. the painful fact still remains that the people of Jasper county are unjustly and unreason-* ably taxed. X X ‘ Good correspondence stationery, cheap at The Democrat office. Judy and The Lief Buggy Co., will sell anything in their line to you individually, independently of any one else aa security.