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misery.

Your petitioner would further represent that he is identified with the welfare and prosperity of the City of Portage. Said City being the centre of an open country ten miles in diameter, particularly inviting to the summer squatter; and to grazing; and well situated to gratify the hunting, and fishing, propensities of Indians.

A tax of sic percent has just been collected in said City, making every "houseowner", virtually a tenant. That under the State law referred to, the [yesterday] voted a tax of about six percent more, and should this succeed in its shrinking design; we can readily suppose ourselves willing to rate several more such taxes, should they promise the least hope of shield, or plunder.

We have many men in our community who fully comprehend the probabilities that National, State, and local indebtedness will be a mortgage upon their property, fully equal to its value and the interest thereon equal to its productiveness.

Of this they do not complain. But of the working of the "Volunteer tax law" which in every sparsely settled portion of Wisconsin, cannot but introduce Arabian morality, and Arabian propensities among our citizens, the result of which must be deterioration in the value of public indebtedness. Hoping you are already satisfied that property and all the avails of property are