8o 
THE A B C OF TAXATION 
Company in 1817 (Figs. XIV and XV). More than 
one hundred firms and individuals are doing business 
in these contracted quarters, in which not one of 
their number would deign to live. These estates, as 
they stand, net the owners an income of probably 
20 to 50 per cent on their original investment. With 
modern buildings they would net say 5 or 6 per cent 
on to-day’s valuation of land and buildings. 
Why, we ask, should there not be a board of business 
health to condemn buildings which, like these, are 
untenable for business? As a matter of fact, a proper 
system of taxation would vacate these untenable 
buildings without the aid of any such board. If the 
erection of the Exchange Building, the Tremont 
Building, and other modern office buildings could 
empty immediately hundreds of dingy and stuffy 
offices, why would not a hundred business palaces, as 
fast as they could be built, empty the same number of 
cramped and ill-appointed stores, workrooms, and 
attics? 
If land and buildings stood on their respective merits, 
subject to equal competition, that is, accessible to 
capital and labour at the price each is worth for use, 
these buildings would quickly condemn themselves. 
Such unmerchantable material, if at sea, would follow 
the decayed frigate to some navy yard to be broken 
up. On land, if they had not been fastened to it, they 
would long ago have gone to the junkshop; but as 
they are fixed to the land, whoever uses the land must 
use them. 
Under the best of conditions, it is sufficient for the 
city to maintain a street at the front doors of abutting 
lots, each one hundred feet deep. Here, on Cornhilk