§ 52. Compensation to Assessors.

It did not occur to the bustling reformers who framed the act of June 18th-20th, 1694-5,' that the tax laborer is worthy of his hire. Perhaps it was because the province had not yet emerged from that stage of politico-social development in which the attempt to tax every one according to his faculty "is seen in the enforced participation in the administration," that, until the act of June 17th, 1696,3 the assessors received no pecuniary compensation for the performance of their really difficult and thankless task. Beginning with that act, each assessor was allowed two shlllings per day "for each day he attended the service;" and with the addition of the adverb "necessarily" before the participle "spent," and of the adjective "whole" before the noun" day," to cut off any chance of the assessors' amassing fortunes at the public expense, the clause allowing them this munificent remuneration was re'tained until 1730, when the compensation was doubled.

$53. Collectors: Choice, Number, etc.

The collection of taxes, though by no means without its difficulties, has been the source of but little trouble compared with that experienced in obtaining just and adequate assessments; and the changes in the plan of procedure in it have been comparatively few and slight. As has already been seen, it is that very ancient and respectable town officer, the constable, who from the earliest times in the Massachusetts colony numbered among his duties the collection of taxes; and the first tax act under the provincial charter avails itself of his services for this work as a matter of course. The sup

1 1694-'5, c. 2.

2 Seligman, The General Property Tax, Political Science Quarterly, V., 38.

31696, c. 3.

41730, c. I.

5 1692-'3, c. 4.

plementary act of December 15th, 1692-3,1 among its provisions for improving the tax system, enables the selectmen or assessors in each town, if they see fit, to appoint a collector or collectors. The preference of the people for the separate officer is sufficiently evident; for, though the provision referred to did not extend beyond the tax then authorized, and was repeated but once (June 18th-20th, 1694-'5"), and then only temporarily, till the general tax act of March 20th, 1699–1700,3 gave that officer a permanent place in the system, yet there is no one of the thirteen tax acts passed during the period mentioned that does not incidentally recognize the collector as an officer on an equal footing with the constable.

The acts of December 15th, 1692-'3,' and June 18th-20th, 1694-'5, provided that the election of collectors for the taxes. then voted should be by the selectmen and the assessors of the towns where they were chosen; but the general act of March 20th, 1699–1700,* provided that the choice of collectors should be made by the voters, at the same time that they chose assessors and other town officers, viz., at the annual town meeting in March. This still remains the rule. The number of collectors to be chosen was not fixed in any act. The act of October 3rd-7th, 1730,5 empowered constables and collectors, though superseded by others appointed in their stead, to go ahead and complete the collection of such taxes as they were responsible for.

$54. General Development.

It has been shown how, in the history of assessments, the government, in order to frustrate frequent attempts on the part of individual citizens and even of whole towns to avoid the

1 1692-'3, c. 41.

2 1694-'5, c. 2.

31699-1700, c. 26.

4 1699-1700, c. 26.

5 1730, c. I.

payment of taxes, were obliged to follow up the delinquents step by step, minutely prescribing the duties of every officer concerned in the assessment as well as of the taxpayers themselves, and affixing severe penalties for neglect or malfeasance in the case of any one of them, until finally in cases where injunctions and penalties proved alike unavailing the court of general sessions for the county was called in to appoint assessors and force an assessment. It is interesting to note a development almost precisely similar, although one naturally later in manifesting itself, in the case of collections. The development of the provincial tax system was nearly completed during the first decade of the second charter; but like the vulnerable spot in the heel of Achilles, there was still one fatal defect in its machinery for assessing and collecting taxes from people who did not want to pay them; though it was not till after the lapse of half a century that this defect appears to have been discovered, or at least to have been taken advantage of to any disturbing degree. The act of February 8th, 1745-6,' recites that "whereas no provision is made in the Act entitled an Act directing how rates and taxes granted by the general assembly, as also county, town and precinct rates, shall be assessed and collected," for appointing collectors or constables where towns neglect to choose them, "whereby, unless there be some remedy, the good design of said Act, to secure the payment of the taxes granted by the general assembly, will be frustrated," the general court now enact that in such cases the sheriff, a county officer, shall collect the rates.

cases of both assessments and collections, then, it was found necessary to have final recourse to permanent county officers for the efficient carrying out of legislative measures for the taxation of the smaller political units.

$55. Qualifications of Collectors.

No qualifications are specified as being required of con

1 1745-6, c. 19.

stables. The general act of November 25th-December 9th, 1692-3,1 "for the establishment of forms of oaths," prescribes the following form for constables:

"Whereas you, A B, are chosen constable within the town of C for one year now following, and until other be chosen and sworn in your place, you do swear, that you will carefully intend the preservation of the peace, the discovery and preventing all attempts against the same, that you will duly execute all warrants which shall be sent unto you from lawful authority, and faithfully attend all such directions in the laws and orders of court as are or shall be committed to your care, that you will faithfully and with what speed you can collect and levy all such fines, distresses, rates, assessments and sums of money for which you shall have sufficient warrants according to law, rendering an account thereof, and paying in the same according to the direction in your warrant. And with like faithfulness, speed and diligence will serve all writs, executions and distresses in private causes betwixt party and party, and make returns thereof duly into the same court where they are returnable. And in all these things you shall deal seriously and faithfully whilst you shall be in office, without any sinister respects of favor or displeasure. So help you God."

The acts above referred to as authorizing the election of separate collectors in those two cases mention only the conventional requirements of "ability" and "sufficiency"; while the general act of March 20th, 1699-1700,2 authorizes the choice of "one or more meet person or persons." Though there is no form of oath prescribed for collectors, nor any ref erence to such an oath, with the exception of the form prescribed in the general act of November 29th-December 19th, 1720-1,3 which applied only to collectors of local rates, yet the omission of such a requirement was not in accordance with the usual practice of the provincial government.

1 1692-'3, c. 35. 21699-1700, c. 26.

$ 1720-'1, c. 7.

$56. Duties of Collectors.

The duty of the collector or of the constable acting as such was twofold; first, to collect from each taxpayer on his list the sum which such taxpayer had been assessed; and, secondly, to pay over all moneys by him so collected to the provincial treasurer. For aiding the collector in the performance of the first of these duties the act of June 24th, 1692--3,1 gave him, in the case of persons refusing or neglecting to make payment of the sums so assessed upon them, the power of levying the same by distress and sale of goods of such persons, returning any overplus; and the severer act of December 15th-16th, 16923,2 added the further penalty, in cases where no goods appeared to levy upon, of the commitment of such person by the collector, under warrant from two or more of the assessors, to the common jail, there to be kept without bail or mainprize until payment be made. These severe provisions, thus early adopted, were retained throughout the provincial period with no change except that the power of instituting proceedings against delinquent taxpayers seems by the act of March 7th, 1695-6,3 to have been vested for a time in the provincial treasurer. By a subsequent act the previous plan was restored.

A date was always fixed, usually from three to ten months ahead, not later than which the constables and collectors were required to make their payments to the provincial treasurer; with which act their labors and the history of the particular tax was completed. For failure to comply with this requirement, the act of June 24th, 1693-4,3 imposed a penalty of the payment by the offending collector of ten pounds in money, and all arrears of the assessments committed to him; the act of