New Britain Herald Newspaper, January 2, 1923, Page 6

" JEW BRITAIN DAILY HERALD, TUESDAY, JANUARY 2, 1023, TR T ——— New Britain Herald HERALD PUBLISHING COMPANY (Tasued Datly, Sunday Bucepted) At Herald Bldg., 67 Church Btreet SURSCRIPTION RATES: 9000 4 Yea §2.00 Three Month % .. » Month Entered at the Post OMce at New Rritaln an Becond Class Mal! Matte TRLEPHONE CALLS Pusiness OMcs Bdttorial Poos "5 LLL | Phe only profitable ad ertising medium In the City, Clreulation ks and press| room always open to advertisers, Member of Tue Assoclated Press Phe Associated Pross is exclusively entitled | to the use for cespublication of all news eredited tharwise creditea In this paper ar local news pub Hahed he Mumber Audit Bureau of Clreulation | Phe A. B O organization | which furniel L] or tirers with a of etreulation, D . Are bused upon ¢ pro- teetion agaln alse tributian figures to both mational and la. | cal advertisers. | A CITY ARCHITECT | $ayor Paonessa suggests that a full | time architect be employed by the | aco, whose chief ocoupaton was study running & many supposed; British publisher; Japanses statesman; Nelson novelist and American ambassader at Rome; Fred- erie Courtland Penfield, former Amers Vienna; William one of the founders of Oll company Lillian a famous actress; Rert Christo- the ocean and not ing gambling hous Lord Narthe Marquis Okuma, as iffe Thomas Page fean ambassador at Rockefell the Btandard Russell, Willlams, negre pher Miner Spenser, inventor of the Spenser rpifle and Wu Ting-Fang Chinese statesman and former minis ter at Washington The list is There are many more whose names could added, A few short days ago and their words beat upon our ears. Now they vanity ones comedian incomplete. be are as far removed from the of the world as the homeleas wander- | er who, weak from hunger, falls un- noticed in the forest and rises not again In this life, They have joined that “innumerable earavan" of which the “fle transit gloria mundl," poet wrote There is value in history, of course, ually golng down as the result of sol- dierly enthusiasm We are glad to be able to say that Heodja Osman found a new dwelling in the trunk of a hospitable plane tree which was a sapling when Hed- ja Osman's great great grandfather was a little boy, 8o Hodja Osman sits in the sun and blinks at the ruin down on his unoffending head, He is a philesopher by nature and he | refuses to allow his disposition to be- | come soured by the mere loss of his home=—an exeellent moral lesson for those who let their choler rise be. cause the landlerd won't furnish enough heat, Long life to Hodja Osman, As he rocks to and fro under his plane tree which marks the burial place of Shelk Binam, Interred these fifteen hundred year, may peace visit his spirit, and may he find solace in the | words, or their equivalent in the Koran, “forgive us our trespa 8 a8 we forgive those who trespass against us" Even though the trespassers Iu' | this case be enlightened and humane | Christians, Although it does not always rarwn‘ {tself, fortunately, the things done in past have a decided bearing upon | re. | the things to be done in the futu Facts and Fancies (BY ROPERT QUILLEN). A national aspiration is just mill. city at a salary of from $6,000 to|Men are judged by past actions. TheY | tarigm in swaddling clothes. $7,000, allowing him to have possibly | one or two assistants, Economy is the | reason suggested for the change. The | argument |s sought to be strengthen- ed by the statement that an architect's fee on one single job often has been more than the year's salary at which & competent man could be engaged. It is urged that the suggestion is time- ly because the school committee has an extensive building program on hand. In other words there is a lot of building to ba done; hire a man by the year to do the planning and supervising. Save money for the city until this big building program is completed. Then what? An architect's total fee on any one building s payment for drawing the plans and for supervising the work. This labor s about equally divided. It might be possible to get a capable architect for this position for $7,000 & year, but it is certain that he would have to employ one or two draughts- men at salaries probably not less than $50 a week, and a stenographer. Other f incidental expenses, together with | these salaries, added to that of the city architect, would certainly bring the total cost up to $13,000 or more at a conservative estimate. Consid- ering the financial aspect of the mat- ter only it would seem that is a great | burden to place upon the taxpayers year after year, to be a fixed charge whether there was any bullding being done by the city or not. Certainly the | city would not stoop to discharge the | architect when there was no work for | him and to take him on again when | there was a chance of saving a cent or two. But the real danger of adopting the suggestion would come in making this office a political one. All people ac- | quainted with the history great | public bulldings know the scandals | that have arisen in connection with many of them; the vast sums of money sunk in them; the unsatisfac- tory results. In construction there ts‘ a greater temptation to graft than in almost any other work, with less op- portunity to discover the dishonesty. Any architect can tell tales of wonder- -ful chances to get many a dishonest penny with little chance of discov- ery. Constructing city buildings that | are to last for many years is too seri-l ous a business to endanger thus, | One not expert in this line feels in- competent to discuss all the argu- ments against making the change, just as those not expert in these matters | should hesitate to advocate placing | the moulding of the physical appear-“ ance of the city in the hands of a| political appointee. of THE DEAD OF Death spares no one. In the hovel and in the pdlace, he strikes, and there is no delaying, be- cause when Death calls, respond. During 1922 the Grim Reaper plied his scythe vigorously, summoning to his fold some of the greatest human 1922 Man must | figures of this dull orb. The necrology of the world's famous and infamous are considered “safe and sane or} the reverse, by the result of the things | they advocated, especially In public | life No man ever loses faith in humanity while the profits are coming in, The woman always pays, Huh?| war has brought ONE TOWN GETS FROM STATE ENOUGH Officers Installation, SCHOCL MONEY TO IS EXPERSES, T Records Also Show That on-Residents Own Prop- erty Here Worth $245, 587,610, | Disclosure of a procedure whieh | made It possible for a certain Connee- | tieut town to obtain from the state |during the past year, enough funds for its schools to pay 42.01 per cent of all it other annual expenses, was | made in the report of State Tax Com- | missioner Willlam H, Blodgett, made publie yesterday The town Is not named in the re- | port, but the amount of its grand for the year 1921 is given as $782, on the ground that the report of the local assessors said that land and buildings were assessed on a basis of 76 per cent of fair valuation, the grand st was raised to 8882, by the state board for equalization, leav- ing the town in the class to receive from the state 60 per cent of the amount paid to its teachers in the year preceding. It also became en- titled thereby to the special aid au- thorized to be pald within the discre- tion of the state board of education. A tax of 20 mills levied by the town on its grand list as repored was cal- culated to raise $15,644.84 for all purposes. It received $6,713,39 or 42,91 per cent of the amount, from Yesterday this newspaper devoted |\yell, at any rate she pays for the the state on the basis of the teachers' a page to detaillng New nrn.m'-‘; story for 1022, and mentioning ",'i outstanding oceurrences in its history | for the year just closed. That page is ; own business, | worthy not only of careful persual, | but also of preservation for reference | purposes. Were such records to be kept year after year a remarkably ac- curate story of this city would be the result. The information is glven as part of the “res gestae,” as the legal term has it. It was printed originally at the time of the events noted, thus giving the viewpoint at the time of the occurrence and not as seen through the haze of time. For this reason there is added value to the data. Almost any person taking an in- telligent interest in our city would be glad to have such a record for the| early years of the city's history. It is | possible, now, to begin to keep such history—which is another evidence of the progress made in the story of the! newspapers of the countr | A PROPER DECISION Companies which insure automo- bile owners against theft of their cars will not be pleased with the decision of the Appellate Division of the Su- preme Court of New York, to the ef- fect that even though the insurance company recovers a stolen car and re- | turns it to its owner it must compen- sate the insured for the wear and tear | suffered by the car while it was in the hands of the thieves. Yet this de cision is eminently proper, and will undoubtedly be affirmed, if carried to the highest dourt of New York | State, the Court of Appeals, and will | undoubtedly be followed by other states if such precedent does not al- ready exist in those states. Any “wear and tear" caused by the thieves or damage to the car after the theft has been com- mitted and before it finds its way back | to the owner, is a direct result of the theft—and theft of the car was thing insured against. This decision of the New York court, and the plain to a common sense of it is called to the | attention of owners of cars in order that they may insist upon their rights | and not be satisfied with the return of a damaged car after it has been | stolen, any more than they would be satisfied with the return of a damaged building after the flames are through with it. PEACE TO HODJA OSMAN Hodja Osman has lived many years without getting his name in the home- town newspaper. In their feverish search for news, the reporters in Alascheir, a town in Anatolia, have passed him by, seeing nothing in him but a paralytic old man who sat in the sun and communed with himself on the futility of life. Then the Greeks came to Anatolia. | This made little difference to Hodja Osman. Of course, it was annoying to is a long one. From pulpit and stage, | have foreigners running all over the from tumultuous military atmosphere and from the hushed study of the sclentist, they went to mingle their | | ing, was Greek to him. | Osman complained not. He made his bones with the dust of the earth. The New York “Times” has com- piled a list of those who because of their benefactions or misdeeds have won the applause or hisses of the| To Dr. rest of us sitting in the gallery. name a few, there were Rev. | daily obeisances with his face the garden place trampling down | sass and discussing the days events in a language which, literally speak- But Hodja to the | East and called upon Allah to wit- ness his fidelity | Then the Greeks left Anatolia. That | is, they left what they could 1ot carry Lyman Abbott, editor of the “Out.:n\\'ay or destroy, if the word of an lgok”; Frank Bacon, actor, creator of | investigation committee of the Red | Cross can be relied upon, and “Lightnin’;” Dr. Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone; Pope | Benedict XV, head of the Roman it usually can. Among the things they could not carry off was Hodja Osman’'s Catholic church; Dr. Jacques Bertil- | house. 8o they destroyed it. Did Hod- lon, French criminologist; Viscount James Bryce, eminent historian and once British ambassador at Washing- | lightning from the sky ton; Charles I, deposed emperor of Austria; Michael Collins and Arthur Griffith, Irish statesmen; forelorn hope in South Africa; Gen. Erich Von Falkenhayn, former chief of the German Imperfal Staff; Charles Ransom Miller, editor of the New General | Christlan DeWet, leader of the Boer's | ja Oeman beat his breast, bewail his fate and call upon Allah to send his and strike dead the Christian dogs? Not at all. Seeing that his house was beyond ali use for purposes of residence, he set | about looking for a new home. In the Occident where houses are continually going up, search for a new flat is not |an adventure for children. Imagine then, the task Hodja Osman faced in . Yotk “Times;” Prince Albert of Mon- | the Orient, where houses are contin- { Another way to get on the | cartridges. - | The trouble seems to be that Uncle | Sam must go to Europe to mind his | Those who once hoped for everlast- | | ing peace forgot that the Dardanelles are a fixture. Freedom in Ireland means only that | a new authority gives directions to the | firing squad. your feet is to use them on the sidewalk in- stead of the clutch and brake pedals. What? America has no culture? Who was it invented that line of slang about the cat's adenolds? | Unfortunately, the world never un- veils statues to immortalize men who were strong for tranquillity. The sultan made promises; Kemal | makes threats. The sultan, it will be | remembered, had many wives. | Even if the nations disarm, Prohi- | bition will keep us from getting rusty in the art of camouflage. If he is rich and acts that way, it | is arrogance, if he is poor and acts | that way, it is sullenness. “Dry land, at last,”. sighed Colum. bus, as he took one more pull at his | flagon and tossed it overboard. | The first syllable of Lausanne is pronounced “Lo". Some of the dicker- ‘lhg had a pronounced lowness, also. When the average man picks up the newspapers he has scattered he thinks he's a great help about the house. There may be no more gold minetr | to discover, but almost anybody can put a new patent medicine on the market. Correct this sentence: “Here," said the cake r to the homely woman in the car, “won't you take my seat, please?” and the poor traction companles have 1]\15!. that many more passengers to | lose money on. | UEUR————————— ) 125 Vears Ago Toa’ay; Street cars are heavily loaded now, | salary grant for the school year ended in July, 1922, Since Commissioner Blodgett's report was written the | town referred to has requested $522. 62 from the state in speclal ald for its schools, and reccived $208.19, “If this town's grand list were raised to a full valuation, leaving & small margin for conservative actlon, its grand list would amount to $2 137,847, says the commissioner, “and it would be raised out of the class to reeeive school ald, special or other- wise, under the provision of Chapter 339 of the Public Acts of 1919. Fur- thermore it would be placed in the class of towns entitled to receive highway ald which pays one-fourth | the cost of state aid construction, in- stead of being in the class of towns which pays one-elghth of such cost.” “Tt is of importance that the state deal equitably with all towns in the distribution of state aid money,” says the commissioner in his report, “but it is of first importance that the dele- gated power to tax the inhabitants of the state for local needs be exercised with painstaking care to the end that cach taxpayer shall be reqnired to bear his fair share of the public bur- den under the law. Avoidable injus- tice in the application of any tax law is intoierable.” New Plan Necessary Pointing out that the total proper- ty levy for the state, which was last made and reported to his office, be- ing that of 1921, amounted to $44,- 655,476.10, the commissioner recom- mends that “some plan should be de- vised at the forthcoming session of the general assembly by which the work of care free taxing officials m. be reviewed and corrected.” He hold that the work of raising forty odd million of dollars annually is of suffi- cient importance to fully justify the creation, in each county, of a board PAY PART OF ALL REPORT ASSERTS lower the geand list of & town, the greater Is the percentage of state ald to whieh it is entitled, This broad poliey of the state was formulated with the purpose that all ehlidren be furnished adequate educational ad- itages— whatever their enviren- ment or whether they reside in towns of wealth or in the smaller towns meagre ability, and to furnish high- ways for through travel, thus open- ing up the back areas to agriculture and development It was for the purpose of unifory the elements considered in making up the several local grand lists, that the state beard of equall- zation was authorized by the Legis- lature to raise or lower the grand list of & town for purposes of dl‘lérm'l The lodge, No. 11 will be installed Friday |{evening by distriet deputy president, Mrs, Earl Kisselbrack and staff, installation supper to be served at 6:30, be the guests. |are to be installed: Louisa Brown; viee-grand, Mrs, A Be Lawyer; Clara Stipek; treasurer, Miss luth A, Thayer, young woman's engagement ring still glittered on her finger and she told Lodge The officers of Siella Rebekab the Martha Lodge of Plainville will The following offfeers | | ngtson; recording-seevelary, financial seeretary, My GIRL REA Washington, Jan, PARS Mildred Wen, 17 year old Chinese girl of this eity W making | fol New York university student, by dis- appearing from her home here, turned again last night, ¥ has twice thwarted family plans her marriage to George Nun Lee, re- After an absence of a week the Good for Men Cautilever Bhoes are comfortable ining percentages of state ald, grand list as fixed by the list for all transactions state and the towns, hourd of equalization, is accepted as the official between the reporters the wedding “probably will take place in the spring.’” In a written statement she sald she had been staying with school friends here during her disappearance. and good for men with good feet or bad feet, Cantilevers are properly shaped to tollow the lines of the foot without Prior to the ecurrent year, the board of equalization has based its| conclusions and in the main part relied on official reports of town | officers, Three investigators were | engaged by the tax commissloner lnst | summer, however, by authority of the board of equalization, to ascertuin and report on the work of asscssors, particularly to ascertain whether boards of assessors were using the rule of valuation imposed by the statutes as a basis of laying the pro- perty tax, and, if so, to determing | how closely valuations fixed by asscs- sors approached the statutory “fair| worked under the direction of Com- § missioner Blodgett, and each was furnished with a set of questionnaires to be used in the towns respectively Investigated by him, Investigators Report Regarding the character of the in- vestigation, Commissioner Blodgett writes as follows in his report:— | “The courts repeatedly have held | that the best evidence of the value of anything is gained by ascertalning the price at which it has been sold. | No one contends that the selling price is conclusive proof of actual value, but it is evidence and usually it is | the best evidence. The questionnalre was so framed that real estate, which, for any reason, may have been sold for an excessive value, conld be {den- tified and eliminated from considera- tion. On the other hand, conveyances of real estate based on a lesser con- sideration or selling price, whatever may have been the cause, than in or- dinary circumstances it would have been sold for, were included and a | questionnalre as to each such transfer | was filled out and used as though the property had sold for its fair market value. | The plan adopted was to parallel | actual selling valuations opposite to | assessors valuations of the same pro- perty, and, by adding the total selling values and separately the last valua- tions of the assessors, an average per- centage figure of assessors valuations to actual selling valuations was ob- tained. In towns wherein real estate was active, transfers of residential | property or small farms were used in sufficient number to obtain a general knowledge of the work of the assess- | ors. In small towns, wherein real es- | tates was inactive, no preference as to property could be given. The last transfers as recorded by town clerks were considered preferable to those older in point of time. It was impos- sible to use the same number of con- | veyance in all towns. In the smaller | to which any taxpayer, whether ag- | grieved by reason of his own assess- ment, or by reason of the failure of local taxing officials to observe the statutory rule of valuation with re- | spect to the property of any other ;taxpayor of the town wherein he re- | sides may take appeal. “By keeping |in close touch with the work:of the assessors in the towns of the counties wherein they respectively may have jurisdiction,” says the report, “such | boards may serve to equalize the tax burdens among taxpayers, correct abuses and relieve, to a large extent. the exercise of power now centralized | offensively in the board of equaliza- tion” which is composed of the tax commissinner, comptroller and treas- urer of the state. No solution of the problem of procuring anything like | equitable assessments of property, of equitably distributing state money among the towns on the basis of grand lists, is expected by Commis- | sioner Biodgett “so long as the re- | sponsibility of fixing property values | for purposes of assessment is lodged as at present, each town board of as- | sessors interpreting the law different- ily from every other.” Non-Resident Holdings Non-residents are shown in the re- port to be in possession of proper! valued at $245,587,610, out of the to- |tal valuation of $1,962,763,631 of all taxable propefty in the state, as | shown by the last Connecticut grand | list, that of 1921, That the owners of 10,549 motor vehicles in the state apparently es- (Taken from Herald of that date) P Hallinan's bakery furnished the a newsboy doesn’t | tsn't worth knowing. | Good skating at the foot of Arch |street this afternoon and evening. Admission 5 cents. Dr. John E. Martin’s horse ran | v on South Main street yesterday |afterncon and by overturning the sleigh, spilled out the physician and a friend who was riding with him. Nefther was injured beyond a few scratches. | John Kelly was elected president cadets at a meeting yes- ¢ afternoon. The other officers |elected were: First vice-president, | Joseph McGrall; second vice-presi- |dent, James Lynch; financial secre- tary, Daniel Hennessey; treasurer, | Rev. John J. Fitzgerald; marshal, |Jom Moore and sergeant-at-arms, Thomas Fitzgerald. | SHOOTS FATHER-IN-LAW DEAD. Middletown, N. Y., Jan. 2.—James |Unzella was shot to death yesterday at Maybrook and his son-in-law, An- |tenio Arsenio, wes arrested on a |charge of homicide, The son-in-law |says that Unzella fired at him with a shotgun first. caped taxation last year, that five towns have not complied with the statutory requirements of a general | revaluation of property, that double | exemptions from taxation were dis- buns and pies for the newsboys' d“"lcoverfld in some towns, and personai|towns do not devote sufficient time ner yesterday, and they were extra|i.. gejinquencies in New Haven and|to their duties; consequently proper- | |00 pies too, the boys said, and What | prggaport all out of proportion oty fs not viewed as is required by the | now zbout a ple| . delinquencies in other towns, arc[statutes, and the assessments disclosed in the report. Based on a careful investigation in all the towns of the state, the com- missioner makes the statement in his report that property is generally un dervalued to the extent that the state |average of assessments is only €0.35 | per cent of the selling values of the property asseseed, Tt is shown that in one town, the esged values were less than 20 per cent of the seliing values; in 10 towns they were between 30 and 40 per eent of the selling val- | ues; in 27 towns, between 40 and 50 per cent; in 51 towns, between 50 and 60 per cent; in 38 towns, between 60 and 70 per cent; in 82 towns. between 70 and 80 per cent, and in 10 towns, between 80 and 90 per cent. In no town was the percentage higher than o0 per cent. The law reqnires that all property be aseessed at the fair mar- ket value, 100 per cent. The effort of the commissioner is directed to- ward a more equitable distribution of the tax burden. The amounts to be expended in any town is to be deter- mined within each town, The proportion of state ald recetv- ed for schools and highways depends on the size of their grand list& The towns not more than a dozen to twen- | ty conveyances could be obtained, t in the larger towns thirty to fif- ty questionnaires were considered sufficient to furnish a basis on which to obtain the averages desired. The | selling values were obtained by pro-| curing information from private sources, from grantors, grantees, or others having information respecting | the transfers, but; more frequently, the federal stamps placed on the deeds were used and the consideration | for the transfer determined there- from. The stamps were correctly af- fixed in a very high percentage of transfers of residential property and mall farms. The reverse was found | to be true in cases of transfers of | mercantile and more valuable proper- ty if sold through or connected with speculative transactions. A table is presented in the rrvportl showing the results of an investiga- tion of seventeen property transfers | in one of the smaller towns of the | state. The highest percentage figure | of any of the assessments shown was | 39 per cent. and the lowest 9.2 per cent. In the 39 per cent. case, the selling value was found to be $1,500, and the assessors’ valuation, $585. In he 9.2 per cent, case, it was found that the property was sold for $5,700, and it was assessed at a value of $625. This is the same town referred to in the opening paragraph of this article. With the exception of Ellington, Chaplin, Putnam, Naugatuck and Norwich, all towns have complied with the requirements of the 1917 General Assembly and have complet- ed a general revaluation of propeny,{ Commissioner Blodgett's report shows. | “It is very evident,” says the report, | that the assessors of the smaller fre- | quently are not based on the statutory rule of fair market value.” PROTECTION Many avoid coughs, colds, bronchitis, or other winter ills, by protecting the body with the consistent use of Scott’s Emulsjon It is a food and tonic rich in health-building i and is a source warmth and energy. The regular Scott’s use of s l conserves Seott & Bowne, Bloomfield N.J. 2324 | EVERETT TRUE looking too darned orthopedie, The arch is flexible for healthy exercise of foot muscles, and gives enough support to be appreciated, I ou Would Hold Off Age YOU MUSt CONSOPVEe yYOur powers of efliciency, Preshyopia or “old-sight” generally makes it- self known to a man at abtout forty-five years, There is noth- ing that will produce normal vi- slon and keep it normal except glasses, You may, ‘of course “tide over" a few years longer but it will gain you nothing and will lose you mach in efMiciency :)( profession and ebbing vital- ty. Come to us for an examina- tion of your cyes, If you do not need glasses we will candid- Iy tell you so, FrankE. Goodwin Eyesight Specialist 827 Main St. Tel. 1905 Sloan Bros. 185 MAIN STREET THE HERALD The A-B-C Paper with the A-B-C Want Ads OPEN TONIGHT Monday evening is the regular evening for this bank to be open. Because of the holiday yesterday this bank will be open tonight from 7 to 8 o’clock. Savings deposits made this evening and tomorrow will draw interest from the first. Our Christmas club is still open for membership. New Pritain National Bank “The only National Bank in New Britain” By Condo PRELT L SR .. o7 3 i S— gl s oy - €€, Bur HE MavDG MG MAD M AT FRsT THMOUGNT HE WAS ONLY FOOL‘NQ, AND ve ME A 3[HOVE LIKES "THAT, AND ~ {3 FS HE GA weLt, NO WONDER “ouw WBRE THOROUGHLY |Arovege® \i!