TAXATION IN NEW ENGLAND CITIES IN 1853.

We give below a summary statement of the assessed value of property in several cities of the New England States:

LOWELL.

The valuation of the real and personal property in Lowell for the present year is as follows:

There are in the city of Portland 270 persons and companies who pay over $100 each, and 11 who pay over $1,000. The largest individual payer is John B. Brown, who is assessed $2,733 29. The rate of taxation is 70 cents to $100, amounting to $129,837 01. The whole valuation of property in the city is

Real estate, $9,783,280; Personal estate, $7,972,832-Total, $17,756,112.

The number of rateable polls is 3,053. The increase of valuation since last year is $1,287,909.

PORTSMOUTH, N. H.

There are only 68 individuals and companies in Portsmouth who are assessed each upwards of $100. The highest is William Jones, $781 20, and William Jones & Son pay $824 82. The number of rateable polls is 1,474. The whole valuation of taxable property is $5,084,704. The rate of taxation is 794 cents on $100, and the taxes amount to $48,241 61.

PROPERTY IN NEWBURYPORT.

The value of property in the city of Newburyport is $5,655,000, namely, real estate, $2,780,000; personal property, $2,875,000. The rate of taxation is 75 cents on $100; the amount to be raised, $46,014 76-viz., State tax, $2,787; county tax, $5,227 76; city tax, $38,000.

SYSTEM OF TAXATION IN WURTEMRERG.

The subjoined statement of the plan of taxation in Wurtemberg, one of the German States, is derived from a reliable correspondent of the Evening Post:

Our time claims this idea as a new one, and I am not in a condition to dispute it. The main principle is to tax property higher when it is found in large quantities with any individual, than when in smaller. The avowed object is to operate through taxation against overgrown fortunes. This idea was made the basis of an income tax in Wurtemberg, in the following manner: Every individual or corporation is required to state its income, arise it as it may-rents, interest, annuities, salaries, and feudal tenures, not even excepting revenues arising from religious endowments, are subject to the tax. If the income amounts to 500 guilders per annum, one-tenth of it-say 50 guilders-is placed upon the grand valuation, and the same taxes levied upon it as upon the valuation of real estate. For sums over 500 and up to 1,000, two-tenths are to be placed upon the valuation; for sums over 1,000 up to 1,800, four-tenths; and for all sums of and over 2,500, the whole amount is placed upon the valuation. The tax levied upon these sums now is 50 per cent, so that

I can hardly calculate what per centage it would produce on the capital, since the incomes vary materially in per centage.

Money produces here seldom over five per cent, and with the higher sums in any one hand, the tax amounts to a good deal. It must be clear that such an income tax operates also as a check upon high interests. If a similar tax law existed in the United States it would require from many a money lender double the sum upon the tax list that he pays at present. That this law taxes some things twice, must be clear.

FINANCES OF AUSTRIA.

REVENUE AND EXPENDITURES OF AUSTRIA FROM 1845 TO 1853.

The report of the parliamentary select committee on decimal coinage has just been printed. The plan recommended by the committee is that the pound should be the unit, and the relation of the several coins as follows:

VALUE OF REAL ESTATE IN KING'S COUNTY, NEW YORK.

The committee on equalization of taxes, to whom was referred the assessment rolls of the several towns and wards of King's County, submitted their report to the Board of Supervisors, from which it appears that during the year 1853 there has been an increase in the value of real estate of $11,173,961 over the year preceding, as is shown by the following statement:

As will be perceived, there has been an increase in the valuation of real estate in every ward and town in the county, with the exception of Flatlands, which shows a decrease of $794.

CURRENCY OF BUENOS AYRES.

The "Casa de Moneda," literally, house of money, is a remarkable institution. It is without fixed limits to its issues, and placed entirely beyond the possibility of failure to meet all its "promises to pay." On the face of its bills it promises to meet all the liabilities with "moneda corriente," i. e., with paper money of its own making. If a "run" should be made upon the bank, it could manage the difficulty with the greatest ease; two clerks would be quite sufficient, one to receive the bills, and the other to pay them out! We doubt whether a more admirable system of security against failure could have been devised by the great Nicholas Biddle himself.

Originally it belonged to a chartered company, under the title of "Bank of Discount," was possessed of capital, and promised to pay in "metalica." It is now a provincial institution, with no capital but the credit of the provincial government, and it promises accordingly.

The lowest point of depreciation which this currency ever reached was in August 1840, during the blockade, when one silver dollar was worth thirty-five paper dollars. In its best days it was at a premium, worth more than silver or gold.

THE BANK OF ENGLAND.

A correspondent of the New York Observer, who visited the Bank of England, thus describes some of its operations:

I have been making a most interesting and instructive visit to the Bank of England. For admission into the interior of this remarkable building, to observe the operations of an institution that exerts more moral and political power than any sovereign in Europe, you must get an order from the Governor of the Bank, and this was given to me through the Barings, whose kindness, especially that of Mr. Sturgis, I have constant

ly experienced. The Bank building occupies an irregular area of eight acres of ground -an edifice of no architectural beauty, with not one window towards the street, being lighted altogether from the roof or the inclosed areas. The ordinary business apartments differ from those in our banks only in their extent-a thousand clerks being constantly on duty, and driven with business at that. But to form any adequate idea of what the Bank is, we must penetrate its recesses, its vaults and offices, in which we shall see such operations as are not known in Wall street. I was led on presenting my card of admission, into a private room, where, after the delay of a few moments, a messenger came, and conducted me through the mighty and mysterious building. Down we went into a room where the notes of the Bank received yesterday were now examined, compared with the entries in the books, and stored away. The Bank of England never issues the same note a second time. It receives in the ordinary course of business about £800,000, or $4,000,000, daily in notes. These are put up in parcels according to their denomination, boxed up with the date of their reception, and are kept ten years; at the expiration of which period they are taken out and ground up in the mill, which I saw running, and made again into paper. If in the course of those ten years any dispute in business or lawsuit should arise, concerning the payment of any note, the Bank can produce the identical bill. To meet the demand for notes so constantly used up, the bank has its own printers, its own engravers, all at work under the same roof, and it even makes the machinery by which the most of its own work is done. A complicated but beautiful operation is a register, extending from the printing office to the banking offices, which marks every sheet of paper that is struck off from the press, so that the printers cannot manufacture a single sheet of blank notes that is not recorded in the Bank. On the same principle of exactness, a shaft is made to pass from one apartment to another, connecting a clock in sixteen business wings of the establishment, and regulating them with such precision, that the whole of them are always pointing to the same second of time.

In another room was a machine exceedingly simple for detecting light gold coins. A row of them dropped one by one upon a spring scale; if the piece of gold was of the standard weight the scale rose to a certain hight, and the coin slid off upon one side into a box; if less than the standard it rose a little higher, and the coin slid off upon the other side. I asked the weigher what was the average number of light coins that came into his hands, and, strangely enough, he said it was a question he was not allowed to answer.

The next room I entered was that in which notes are deposited which are ready for issue. We have thirty-two millions of pounds sterling in this room," the officer remarked to me, "will you take a little of it?" I told him it would be vastly agreeable, and he handed me a million sterling, (five millions of dollars,) which I received with many thanks for his liberality; but he insisted on my depositing it with him again, as it would be hardly safe to carry so much money into the street. I very much fear that I shall never see that money again, In the vault beneath the floor was a director and cashier counting the bags of gold which men were pitching down to them, each bag containing a thousand pounds sterling just from the mint. This world of money seemed to realize the fables of Eastern wealth, and gave me new and strong impressions of the magnitude of the business done here, and the extent of the relations of this one institution to the Commerce of the world.

CITY DEBTS FOR RAILROADS.

Mr. Ellet, civil engineer, furnishes an account of the debts of several cities for railroads, the aggregate of which is as follows:

It may be interesting to know the proportion of indebtedness between the individuals in these corporations and between those in some of the states. In Philadelphia, there is to each inhabitant a railroad debt of $20; in Pittsburgh $34; in Wheeling $55; in Baltimore $43; in St. Louis $30; in Cincinnati $7; in Louisville $25; in New Orleans $23; in Covington $17; in Chillicothe $7; in Marietta $20.

COMMERCIAL REGULATIONS.

GENERAL CUSTOMS REGULATIONS.

INSTRUCTIONS NO. 8.-TO COLLECTORS AND OTHER OFFICERS OF THE CUSTOMS.
TREASURY DEPARTMENT, August 25th, 1853.

It is deemed advisable for more convenient use and reference by officers of the Customs to embody in a single circular several important instructions issued by the Department from time to time in regard to the Collection of the Revenue from Customs.

The Act of March 3d, 1851, entitled "An Act to amend the acts regulating the appraisement of imported merchandise, and for other purposes," provides, in its first section; "That in all cases where there is or shall be imposed any ad valorem rate of duty on any goods, wares, or merchandise, imported into the United States, it shall be the duty of the Collector within whose district the same shall be imported or entered, to cause the actual market value, or wholesale price thereof, at the period of the exportation to the United States, in the principal markets of the country from which the same shall have been imported into the United States, to be appraised, estimated, and ascertained; and to such value or price shall be added all costs and charges, except insurance, and including in every case a charge for commissions at the usual rates, as the true value at the port where the same may be entered, upon which duties shall be assessed."

It will be perceived that the legal provision, above cited, requires the duties to be assessed on the "actual market value or wholesale price" of merchandise in the principal markets of the country from which imported "at the period of the exportation to the United States," and on all costs and charges except insurance.

When, however, goods are imported from a country other than that of their growth, production, or manufacture, and the invoice or appraised value is less than "the actual market value or wholesale price thereof" in the principal markets of the country of the growth, production, or manufacture, at the period of the exportation to the United States, Collectors will report such cases, with all the facts and circumstances, to the Department, and await its instructions, before the final adjustment of duties.

The "period of exportation" where the merchandise is laden on board a vessel in the shipping port of the country of origin, or in which it was purchased or procured for shipment to an owner, consignee, or agent residing in the United States, must be deemed and taken to be the date at which the vessel leaves the foreign port for her destination in the United States.

That period will ordinarily be established by the production of the clearance granted to the vessel at the foreign port of departure.

Importations may also be made from interior countries remote from the sea board, and having no shipping ports of their own, through the seaports of other countries. The "period of exportation" in such cases, at which the actual market value and wholesale price of the merchandise in the principal markets of the country whence imported into the United States, is to be ascertained and estimated as the basis of dutiable value, is the date at which the merchandise in question leaves said interior country, destined in good faith, and the regular and usual course of trade, for shipment to some owner, consignee, or agent, residing in the United States; of which satisfactory proof must be exhibited at the time of entry.

That period will be established ordinarily by the date of authentication of the invoice by the consular certificate.

In the absence, satisfactorily explained, of the proofs above indicated, showing the date of exportation from the foreign country, other evidence of that fact may be taken by the appraisers.

The law requires that there shall be added to the "actual market value or wholesale price" of imports, ascertained as above, in order to fix the dutiable value," all costs and charges, except insurance, and including in every case a charge for commissions at the usual rates."

These charges are

1. They must include "purchasing, carriage, bleaching, dying, dressing, finishing,