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State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations at the End of the Century (1902)
State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations at the End of the Century - 1902 Author:Edward Field Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: form of money loaned to congress, taxes paid and loans made to the state, were about $2,600,000. These figures include interest to 1790, and the principal sum at... more » the close of the war in 1783 may be ealeulated at about $1,830.000, or nearly $230,000 annually. Had the whole sum been raised by taxes durin(r the war it would have amounted to a per eapita charge of $4.30. The amounts advanced to "invalids" for pensions to April, 1786, were £3,334 2s., and from 1786 to 1792 £18,075 2s. 5 l-2d. The normal expenditures of the peace period were still confined to a small salary list and a few thousands for internal improvements. In 1795 the ordinary expenses were about $5,000 annually, and for the previous few years about $8,300 had been expended chiefly on the court houses and prisons. In 1800 the ordinary expenses had risen to about $6,000, estimated by the treasurer as follows: Governor's salary and fees for signing commissions, $675; lieutenant-governor's salary, $300; attorney-general's fees, $300 ; five justices of the supreme court, $1,900: general treasurer, printing and stationery, $250; other expenses, $1,375. l'ART III— 1800-1000. ? Centw ?' s The sources for this period are the acts and resoives and reports of the general assembly, reports of the treasurer and auditor, and the newspapers of the time. The finances of the nineteenth century present points of marked difference from those of earlier date. Questions of taxation no longer involved the constitutional relations between the loeal and central government, the supreme authority of the latter being fully recognized. The development of manufacturing and the shifting of population from the country to the towns— Providence having had 11 per cent, of the state's inhabitants in 1800, 28 per cent, in 1850, and nearly 4...« less