REFUSED GREENBACKS
Last Saturday, eleven inspectors in the barge office of the Custom House received a call from the Poll tax Collector, and they tendered their indebtedness in the kind of money their salaries are paid in - green-backs. The Collector said he was not allowed to take anything but coin, and the inspectors said they would suffer imprisonment before they would pay in anything but green-backs. The soundness of this position will be appreciated when you come to reflect that they only get four dollars a day, anyhow, and when that sum is mashed into green-backs at present rates, it only amounts to about a dollar and a half a day. Now, estimating their actual living expenses at a dollar and forty-five cents a day - and it cannot fall below that while they continue to eat anything - how long would it take one of those inspectors to pay this oppressive Poll-tax in coin out of the clear profits of his labor? Why, it would take two months and three weeks, as nearly as you could come at it; as the amount of the tax is four dollars.
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