68 
THE A B C OF TAXATION 
exempted, the land alone would yield the same amount, 
(161,135,900 at I18.70 equals $1,143,672). 
Some Pertinent Illustrations 
There are on this street, between Adams Square 
and Eliot Street, 179 buildings, twenty-one of which 
have been erected in the last twenty years. At this 
rate Washington Street is confronted with the happy 
prospect of buildings of modern beauty and con 
venience in only a trifle more than one hundred and 
seventy years, provided only that none of them 
grows old meantime. Has not fifty years been the 
limit of a useful life for the average building of the 
past? If so, Washington Street should have three 
full crops of new buildings, instead of one, in the 
one hundred and seventy years. 
All nature renews itself and comes out in a new 
dress once a year. The more the land is enriched, 
the more fertile the agricultural crop. Why is there 
not found the richest economic crop of buildings on 
land richest in value? Is not something “rotten in 
Denmark”? If so, what is it? 
The human body, as man’s habitation, is renewed 
once in seven years, cuticle and all. Of Boston’s 87,300 
buildings 1,657 were erected in 1907. If one-half, or 
828, of these are due to a natural growth of less than 
1 per cent annually (the annual increase in population 
is over 2 per cent), and only one-half are to renew old 
buildings already enumerated, then it v/ill take at this 
rate upwards of one hundred years to scrape off the 
surface scurf, and give to Boston a fresh and healthy 
cuticle. It will require these one hundred years even 
if every new building is proof against decay.