Rensselaer Union, Volume 6, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 October 1873 — The Rail Road Tax. [ARTICLE]

The Rail Road Tax.

Editors Union: —A petition will bo presented to the Board of county Commissioners at. the proper time, praying that the money in the county treasury which was collected as a tax in aid of the building of the Fort Wayne and Pacific railroad through • Jasper county be refunded to the taxpayers. Owing to the present turbulent condition of financial matters it would seem to be the duty of the Commission- ’ ers to refund said tax as soon as possible. With fifty thousand dollars distributed among the people of this county*.they would be euabled to pay their delinquent taxes, and to prepare for the rigors of winter. Justice demands that this should be done soon. I voted for the appropriation and worked hard to carry the tax; the railroad company having failed to complete their railroad in accordance with the law, I therefore urge that the tax be immediately refunded. B. T. [The “suggestion of “IL T.” is a good one. Section 2of an act of the Indiana Legislature, approved January 30th, 1873, provides that if a “railroad company shall not. within three years after said tax has been placed upon the duplicate of the proper county for collection, have expended in the actual construction of said railroad iiT said, county or townsliip, an amount of money equal to the amount of money to be donated to or stock to be taken in said railroad company by said county or township, the board of commissioners may, in their discretion, make an order annulling and cancelling such subscriptions of sfock or donations of money, upon the application of 'twenty-five freeholders q>f the ■ comity through which said railroad

shall pass, upon said freeholders having given thirty days public notice immediately preceding the term of the commissioners court at which sairl application is to h® made, of their intention to make such application.” After the order annulling the appropriation is passed then, (it is held), the board of commissioners may, under the provisions of section 1 of an act thatwas approved December 24th, 1872, refund the money levied and collected for the use of the railroad, “to each taxpayer in tlie proportion in which the same was collected.” If this view of the case is correct, such notice as the law requires should be served upon the board of commissioners at their session on the 20th of the present month, and then on the first Monday in December they will be ready to take under advisement a petition asking that the tax be refunded. And we have no doubt the board will grant what manifestly is so proper and right.— Editors Union.]