Book Description

Excerpt from King's Dictionary of Boston In the growth and development of Boston, the problem has presented itself To what extent, and on what conditions, may one generation rightly and wisely burden. Those which are to follow it by a debt incurred for some costly enter prise for the public good It has been only in quite recent years that this question has been pressed with much stringency, Opening in the discussion of it strong variances of opinion. In our early, simple, frugal, and, it must be added, our hardest times, there had been no occasion to raise the question; and, had it been raised, it would have been summarily disposed of. Very im pressive to us is the reminder that the first occupants and subduers of this soil, the first to turn it to the uses of civilized life, with dwellings and fortifications, highways, meeting-houses, school-houses, granaries, water-conduits, and fire ap paratus, thoroughly followed the rule to pay as you go. And the exaction was often a severe one. It never occurred to any magistrate to suggest, Our children are to have the benefit of this why not leave it for them to pay a part of the expense There was no chance for bloated bondholders then. When, six years after the settlement, the proposition was approved for founding a college, the country-rate, or tax for the current year, was at once doubled. Military expenses are always the costliest, and are regarded as most closely involving the welfare of posterity. But year by year, in their warfare with the savages, the magistrates of Boston resolutely paid their way, filling and clearing their scanty exchequer; and it was not till the struggle was complicated with, and made insupportable by, the cash resources of the people, on account of burdensome war with the French, that we hear anything of a funded debt and of paper money. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.